Femininities and Masculinities in the Digital Age: Realia and Utopia in the Balkans and South Caucasus 3030784118, 9783030784119

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Karl Kaser

Femininities and Masculinities in the Digital Age Realia and Utopia in the Balkans and South Caucasus

Femininities and Masculinities in the Digital Age

Karl Kaser

Femininities and Masculinities in the Digital Age Realia and Utopia in the Balkans and South Caucasus

Karl Kaser Southeast European Hist & Anthropology University of Graz Graz, Austria

ISBN 978-3-030-78411-9    ISBN 978-3-030-78412-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78412-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

The countries and regions of the Balkans and the South Caucasus, together with Russia, are frequently considered the last strongholds of European patriarchy. However, the study of patriarchy and thus of gender relations in and on the Balkans and the South Caucasus, a region that I have termed ‘Eurasia Minor’ in some of my previous publications, has not yet satisfyingly advanced after the fall of communism and since the remarkable revival of Islam in Turkey starting in the early 1990s. In many of the 15 countries tackled in this study, gender studies had to be inaugurated from scratch, and its existence has been questioned by the ethnocentric mainstream research agenda in the humanities and social sciences. However, the many attempts to marginalise and silence the feminist streams in anthropological, historical, and sociological research have neither resulted in its triumphal suppression nor in its full flourishing. The disadvantageous climate for gender and women’s studies in the past three decades has also not been favourable for methodological and theoretical innovation. In order not to provide arguments for its continuous marginalisation, gender studies has not strongly attempted to provoke the mainstream of its respective disciplines with pioneering methodological and theoretical approaches and to overemphasise transdisciplinarity, such as the entanglement of textual and visual discourses. The latter remark is not specific to Eurasia Minor, rather this reluctance can be considered a general phenomenon. For the purpose of providing my study with a stimulating impetus, I chose to depart from the beaten track of gender studies in and on the region and its overwhelming focus on the analysis of textual discourses. Considering that we live in a digital age and the visual has become at least as important as the textual in our lives – if not even more important – I have placed the visual in the foreground of my investigation while giving consideration to existing non-visual demographic, feminist, and sociological research. This perspective refocuses research from classic textual and/or interview-based gender relations study towards the cultural and social visual representation of femininities and masculinities and all other sexual orientations. Otherwise less emphasised categories such as ‘pornified’ or ‘porno-chic’ culture, on the one hand, and ‘veiling-chic’ culture and ‘new Muslim femininity’, on the other, have become the centre of interest. v

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Preface

This perspectival turn towards visual representation, from the everyday ‘realia’ of gender relations to the wishful ‘utopia’ of being man and woman, suggests other understandings of gender as well as alternative morals and values following a period marked by ‘retraditionalisation’. In contrast to many other authors, I recognise signs of a turn towards more balanced gender relations in Eurasia Minor. They are becoming visible on the horizon and are reflected in the ongoing renegotiation of gender roles as well as the transformation of female and male identities. This turn has not come out of the blue, but is related to my biography as a researcher and scholar. Three decades ago, I became keenly interested in historical family demography and gender relations in the Balkans. Driven by the conviction that the numbers revealed by demographers must be contextualised socially, culturally, and economically, some 10–15 years ago I arrived at the idea that the image could provide such contextual views on the social, the cultural, and the economic beneficially simultaneously. Whereas the strength of demography lies in its potential to allow the observation of the temporal change of single phenomena over time, the strength of the image is its ability to display phenomenological wholeness at a given point in time. I consider the present study as an attempt to successfully combine historical demography with contemporary digital visuality, and hereby to merge perspectives ‘over time’ with points ‘in time’. Graz, Austria

Karl Kaser

Contents

1 Introduction����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    1 State of Research����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    6 Theoretical Orientations and Hypotheses��������������������������������������������������    9 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   18 2 The Balkans and South Caucasus – Eurasia Minor ����������������������������   23 Ethnic and Religious Composition������������������������������������������������������������   26 Ethnicities and Nations��������������������������������������������������������������������������   26 Religions������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   27 Economic, Political, and Social Transformations��������������������������������������   30 Difficult Economic Transition���������������������������������������������������������������   31 Employment and Unemployment����������������������������������������������������������   32 Gender Wage Gap����������������������������������������������������������������������������������   34 Labour Migration ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������   35 Sex Work and Trafficking����������������������������������������������������������������������   37 Legal Issues of Gender and LGBTIQ Equality������������������������������������������   39 Women in Politics��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   44 Women in Parliaments ��������������������������������������������������������������������������   44 Counter Force: Organised Women��������������������������������������������������������   47 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   52 3 Patriarchies, Femininities and Masculinities����������������������������������������   57 Patriarchal Landscapes������������������������������������������������������������������������������   59 Qualitative Evidence������������������������������������������������������������������������������   61 Quantitative Evidence����������������������������������������������������������������������������   62 Being Man and Woman – Ideologies and Discourses��������������������������������   64 Gender Discourses ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������   64 Religious Discourses on the Complementarity of Men and Women��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   66 Gender Stereotypes in Education����������������������������������������������������������   67 Motherhood and Chastity as Hegemonic Femininity����������������������������   68

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Contents

Violent and Repressive – Hegemonic Masculinity and Domestic Violence��������������������������������������������������������������������������   70 Gays, Lesbians, and Transgenderism��������������������������������������������������������   75 Pride Parades������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   77 Demography and Marriage Arrangements������������������������������������������������   79 On the Way to the Second Demographic Transition?����������������������������   80 Sexual Life ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   82 Contraception and Abortion������������������������������������������������������������������   84 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   89 4 Producers, Agents, and Transmitters ����������������������������������������������������   97 Media Landscapes��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   99 Television ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  103 Internet ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  106 Newspapers and Magazines ������������������������������������������������������������������  108 The Cinema Industry������������������������������������������������������������������������������  111 Advertising������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  113 The Fashion Industry ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������  117 Religious Entrepreneurs����������������������������������������������������������������������������  121 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  128 5 Veiling-Chic Cultures������������������������������������������������������������������������������  133 The Embattled Public Space����������������������������������������������������������������������  137 Veiling����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  137 Unveiling������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  138 Re-veiling����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  142 Depicting Femininities in Secular Islamic Countries��������������������������������  145 Advertising and ‘Tesettür’ Companies��������������������������������������������������  145 Television ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  147 Film��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  151 Magazines, Newspapers, and Textbooks�����������������������������������������������  154 Islamic Dress and Lifestyle������������������������������������������������������������������������  158 New Muslim Femininity����������������������������������������������������������������������������  162 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  166 6 Porno-Chic Cultures��������������������������������������������������������������������������������  171 Visual Gender Presentation in Socialism��������������������������������������������������  172 Fashion, Beauty, Cosmetics, and Sexuality ������������������������������������������  172 Advertising��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  175 The Market Economy and New Media Landscapes����������������������������������  176 The Tabloid Press, Commercial TV, and Women’s Magazines ������������  176 Cinema and Telefilms����������������������������������������������������������������������������  179 Textbooks ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  183 Religious Magazines������������������������������������������������������������������������������  184 Advertising Femininities and Masculinities����������������������������������������������  186 New Femininities and Masculinities: The Beauty and the Adventurer������  192

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Pornography as Emancipation ��������������������������������������������������������������  193 New Femininities – Self-Surveillance and Empowerment��������������������  195 New Masculinities – The Marlboro Man ����������������������������������������������  203 Bibliometric Analysis��������������������������������������������������������������������������������  206 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  216 Conclusions – Realia and Utopia��������������������������������������������������������������������  223 Chapter Results������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  225 Hypotheses Verified ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������  229 The Study’s Main Results��������������������������������������������������������������������������  231 Index������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  235

About the Author

Karl Kaser  is a full professor of Southeast European history and anthropology at the University of Graz, Austria. His research focuses on historical-anthropological issues and encompasses topics such as the history of family, kinship, and clientelism, gender relations, and historical visual cultures of the Balkans. His most recent monographs are: Patriarchy after Patriarchy. Gender Relations in Turkey and in the Balkans (2008), The Balkans and the Near East. Introduction to a Shared History (2011), Andere Blicke. Religion und visuelle Kulturen auf dem Balkan und im Nahen Osten (2013), and Hollywood auf dem Balkan. Die visuelle Moderne an der europäischen Peripherie (1900–1970) (2018). He has conducted numerous research projects. Currently, he is coordinator of the research and exchange project ‘Knowledge Exchange and Academic Cultures in the Humanities: Europe and the Black Sea Region, Late 18th – 21st Centuries’, funded by the European Commission. The author is Doctor h.c. of the universities of Batumi (Georgia) and Blagoevgrad (Bulgaria), honorary professor of the University of Shkodra (Albania), and an honorary member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences (ZRC SAZU).

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List of Graphs

Graph 6.1  Type of publication������������������������������������������������������������������������  208 Graph 6.2  Media type�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  208 Graph 6.3  Year of publication������������������������������������������������������������������������  209 Graph 6.4  Masculinity type����������������������������������������������������������������������������  212 Graph 6.5  Femininity type������������������������������������������������������������������������������  212 Graph 6.6  Frequency of mentioned gender roles�������������������������������������������  213

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List of Tables

Table 6.1  Reference of Studies to Year or Period�������������������������������������������  211 Table 6.2  Women depicted as...�����������������������������������������������������������������������  213

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Chapter 1

Introduction

Abstract  The aim of this study is to exploit the epistemic potential of interrelating two seemingly separate levels of gendered interaction: the realia of actually practised gender relations and the level of primarily visually imagined desirables (utopia). Here, utopia is simply the locus of what is desired. This crucial interrelation has been widely ignored in research. In the digital age, visually imagined desirables tell us more than ever before about what women and men dream of. This study, therefore, is an account of the realities of gender relations; but first and foremost, it is an account of desired gender relations and imagined femininities and masculinities. This ambitious aim includes four innovative conceptual and methodological components. The first consists of a combination of textual and visual approaches, and the second of the central methodological operation – a bibliometric analysis. The third component comprises the surprising result that sees signs of a turn towards more balanced gender relations becoming visible on the horizon. The fourth noteworthy component is that this study unites two regions usually researched separately – the Balkans and the South Caucasus – under one cognitive umbrella that I call ‘Eurasia Minor’.

We have arrived in the digital age. This arrival has not only significantly impacted on our everyday lives but has changed our attitudes as researchers and our scientific cultures, whether in the field of medicine or in the social sciences and humanities. Likewise, almost no country in the world has been able to withstand the allure of digital visuality. The linguistic turn has lost its comprehensive explanatory power, being complemented by the ongoing pictorial or visual turn inaugurated in the 1990s – textual discourses complemented by visual ones. In this context, the social and cultural construction of femininities and masculinities, and thus the practice of gender relations, is based on their visual presentations and representations more than ever in history.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 K. Kaser, Femininities and Masculinities in the Digital Age, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78412-6_1

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1 Introduction

It is difficult to determine when in different parts of the world the digital age exactly began or, to be more precise, when transformation into the digital age began – even for media historians. This is because, among other things, digitalisation includes technical, economic, and social aspects (Schröter & Böhnke, 2004). It was not until the mid-1990s that the diffusion of the Internet into the everyday life of many North Americans and people in the UK and Northern Europe became a reality. By the end of the decade, most Americans were online (Schröter, 2015, 337, 339, 341). Today, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, digital technology and digital ‘new media’ have penetrated the economy and everyday life in many parts of the world. During its first quarter of a century of operation, Internet communication was purely text-based. In the 1990s, the WWW was developed and caused a shift from text-based communication to multimedia communication, giving way to new forms of mediated interaction (web boards, blogs, wikis, social network sites, video stream, graphically intensive virtual worlds). The seemingly unabated rise of interest in digital visuality and in visual studies was subsequently confirmed by the proclamation of the ‘pictorial turn’ by Chicago-based art historian and philosopher W. J. Thomas Mitchell in the mid-1990s (Mitchell, 1994). Meanwhile, the idea that images participate in important ways in the creation of relevant realities and utopias has gained widespread currency (Stocchetti, 2017). The 2000s saw further advancements of the WWW, the hallmark of which was user-generated content on Social Network Sites (SNSs) where individuals have profiles to which they can upload diverse media and connect with others through ‘friending’ (Baym, 2015). The novelty of digital visual communication compared to its conventional analogue predecessors was its blurring of the distinction between producer, distributor, and consumer of visual objects. Moreover, it created a logic for the representation of reality that enhances the social value of visual communication in the sense that a message must be visual if it is to be relevant at all. Digital technologies additionally accelerated the circulation of images across material and immaterial obstacles such as borders, cultures, language, status, and gender (Stocchetti, 2014, 2–5). All these components have impacted on the visual construction of femininities and masculinities. From a historical point of view, the enablement of user-generated content in the WWW constitutes one of two important turning points in the relationship between the human being and the creation, consumption, and distribution of images. The first turning point in this centuries-old relationship was the introduction of the mechanically reproducible analogue image, which began to complement the original (artwork). Methods of mass reproduction allowed pictures to be brought to people and not vice versa, people to the pictures. The mechanically reproducible picture stimulated a visual culture of modernity around 1900 which developed into a mass phenomenon and in this way into an increasingly powerful force. Meanwhile, we have entered the digital age in which pictures not only come to the people, but anyone is able to create images of themselves and to distribute them in abundance within their SNSs and beyond. This integrated whole of creation, distribution, and consumption has enabled individuals independently of class affiliation, education,

1 Introduction

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ethnicity, and gender to become agents in the social and cultural construction of realities and utopias. Some art theoreticians, such as Krešimir Purgar, go even further and have announced the end of pictorial representation. Accordingly, we are already living in a transitional period of pictorial representation shifting towards virtual reality, in which images will disperse or even disappear because we no longer need the substantiality of paper, canvas, or any other physical base for the display of pictures (Purgar, 2019, 17–25). This study, however, deals throughout with the visual representations of femininities and masculinities as social constructions. The concrete social and cultural context of the 1990s and 2000s suggests a process clearly more strongly oriented towards pictorial representation than its predicted disappearance. The inclusion of a previously unimaginable number of agents in the social and cultural construction of social realities and utopias such as femininities and masculinities had some predictable consequences, e.g., their globalisation as well as some surprising ones. Alarmed by similar studies in the United States and Australia, the UK Home Office commissioned a high-profile report on the sexualisation1 of young people on SNSs. According to the report, the past three decades have seen a dramatic increase in the use of sexualised imagery in advertising. A dominant theme in the media has been the perceived need for girls to present themselves as sexually desirable in order to attract male attention. The predominant message for boys has been that they should be sexually dominant and objectify the female body. The new quality, however, is that girls report being under increasing pressure to display themselves in underwear or bikinis online, whereas boys seek to display their bodies in a hyper-masculine way by showing off muscles and posing as powerful and dominant (Papadopoulos, 2010, 6–8, 10). Researchers argue that online sexual self-commodification on SNSs is explicitly tied to a ‘visual cyber culture’ which has become common in the contemporary postfeminist context of commercial media. The idea that Western culture is generally sexualised, and explicit sexual content is continually being mainstreamed through processes like the normalisation of pornographic imagery and discourses in everyday life, has been widely discussed (Ringrose, 2013, 101–2, 105, 108–9). Camgirls, for instance, present themselves as cultural producers, challenging the representation of women as technologically inept and as passive sexual objects (Attwood, 2013, 208–9, 212). This hyper-individualising, neoliberal, popular, or postfeminism (also called ‘third-wave feminism’) that emphasises bodily self-­ expression, the desirability of women’s freedom to express themselves sexually, and the ability to choose a highly sexualised lifestyle (Press, 2013, 117–8) is backed by commercial interests and conveyed through advertising. It has become occupied by educated and upwardly mobile women, and is easily mainstreamed and popularised having lost its oppositional force. The emerging new femininities –‘a backlash against feminism’ (Gill, 2016, 612) – situate the third-wave feminism of the digital

1  Sexualisation here means the imposition of adult sexuality on children and young people before they are capable of dealing with it mentally, emotionally, or physically (Papadopoulos, 2010).

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1 Introduction

age in quite a different context to the ‘second wave’ of the 1960s through to the 1980s, as well as to relatively quiet contemporary feminism. Managing the balancing act between both trajectories has become extremely difficult. The #MeToo movement is one of the rare groups to have achieved this feat; it has emerged as a powerful force able to conflate feminist objectives by successfully playing the media keyboard (Banet-Weiser et al., 2020, 8, 18). So far, the impact of digital visual culture on emerging neoliberal femininities and masculinities has been characteristic mainly for North America and Northwest Europe. Analogous economic, cultural, and social frameworks still scarcely exist at the opposite, southeastern pole of the European continent  – in the Balkans and South Caucasus. Although the Southeast has participated in processes of neoliberalisation and digitalisation, albeit with a time lag but meanwhile quite comprehensively, women and men are still recognisably differently situated culturally, politically, and economically. They have comparatively unequal access to material and cultural resources, different and unequal opportunities regarding the provision and consumption of material goods, and different and unequal access to political and economic processes. In the socialist past, independent feminist movements did not exist; instead, women’s organisations were dependent on the party and were instantly abolished with the end of socialist party dictatorship. The negative heritage of these organisations is one of the reasons why women’s movements and feminisms have not received significant social support in post-socialist countries and women’s issues have been widely marginalised. Since the middle of the twentieth century, numerous initiatives worldwide have been trying to improve the dissatisfying situation of the female population in Europe and globally. The dominant approach in the 1960s and early 1970s emphasised economic growth as the most effective strategy for achieving improvements in the living standards and status of women (Inglehart & Norris, 2003, 4–5; Kotseva, 2014, 8–20). During the 1980s and 1990s, recognising the limitations of economic strategies, the international women’s movement and official bodies such as the United Nations and the European Union increasingly turned their attention to the role of the state in alleviating institutional and legal barriers to women’s progress (Inglehart & Norris, 2003, 4–5). With the argument that the ‘women’s question’ had already been resolved in the socialist countries, socialist governments were able to ignore international strategies of this kind. However, from the early 1990s and following the collapse of socialism, policies of official ignorance were no longer opportune and a phase of de facto retraditionalisation and repatriarchisation, lasting approximately two decades, began. Nevertheless most, but not all, of the international initiatives aimed at the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms for women were supported by the Balkan and South Caucasus states (Inglehart & Norris, 2003, 3; Kotseva, 2014, 8–20; Silova, 2016). One of the few examples of the non-implementation of an international initiative in support of women’s issues was the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention), the ratification of which was refused not only by

1 Introduction

5

Bulgaria but also by the governments of Slovakia, Latvia (Burke & Molitorisová, 2019), and Turkey. Against the backdrop of these major developments in North America and Northwest Europe on the one hand, and the Balkans and South Caucasus on the other, this study attempts to shed new light on the deadlocked debate with respect to the remarkable regression of gender equality in the region in the first two decades of post-socialism and in post-Kemalism. By exploring a neglected perspective in the study of existing gender relations (realia), namely, visually constructed femininities and masculinities (utopia), fresh light can illuminate the darkness. The debate appears to have reached an impasse since many consider this regression a permanent state, though evidence of change is already shimmering through. The aim of this study is to exploit the epistemic potential of interrelating two seemingly separate levels of gendered interaction: the realia of actually practised gender relations and the level of primarily visually imagined desirables (utopia). Here, utopia is simply the locus of what is desired. This crucial interrelation has been widely ignored in research. In the digital age, visually imagined desirables tell us more than ever before about what women and men dream of. This study, therefore, is an account of the realities of gender relations; but first and foremost, it is an account of desired gender relations and imagined femininities and masculinities. People relate everyday realia to their visual utopia in various ways. In doing so, they correlate internal picture galleries with the unstructured mass of external images, thus creating visual cultures; this will be elaborated in the following theoretical section. This ambitious aim includes four innovative conceptual and methodological components: 1. The first component comprises a combination of textual and visual approaches. I believe that discussing gender relations, femininities and masculinities in the digital era is no longer feasible without including the wide and thriving field of digital visuality, because this can help us to look at the world not as it is but as it could be – as utopia (Stocchetti, 2017). Femininities and masculinities are primarily publicly staged and performed, rather than simply practised in everyday gender and family situations. Since performativity and staging are inherent categories of femininities and masculinities, I will spotlight them without neglecting gender relations, since private patriarchy still plays out primarily in the framework of domestic life. 2. One of the challenges of the study of a region like Eurasia Minor is not only the number of countries – 15 – and their more than 15 languages, but the fact that the study of regional digital-visual presentations and representations does not allow for generalisation on the basis of one or two case studies. Thus, a study of women’s fashion in Albania and the investigation of gender relations represented in advertising on public TV in Azerbaijan or Moldova would not allow for even the most modest generalisation concerning the visual representation of femininities and masculinities in the entire region. This study bridges the dilemma by presenting a bibliometric analysis based on one hundred entries of studies (the fig-

6

1 Introduction

ure is accidental) conducted in the region in the past two to three decades. Such an analysis is far more meaningful and innovative than one or two randomly chosen case studies, since the data incorporated in these visual studies comprises thousands of magazine ads, hundreds of TV commercials, and the r­ epresentations of men and women in more than a dozen daily newspapers and over one hundred textbooks. 3. My conclusion that after decades of the turbulent reconfiguration of gender relations the generation born around 1990 has taken over the helm in many important aspects of social life, forms the third innovative component. Many of these young people think differently to their parents about what they want to achieve in life. This shift concerns other understandings of gender as well as alternative morals and values following a period marked by ‘retraditionalisation’. In contrast to many other authors, I recognise signs of a turn towards more balanced gender relations. They are becoming visible on the horizon, though not in every country to the same extent, and in the EU member countries more evidently than in other countries of Eurasia Minor. Not only are gender roles and relations in the process of being renegotiated, but so are femininities and masculinities. I do not discern a mass movement as yet, but it can become so once the small snowball starts to roll. 4. The fourth noteworthy innovation in this study is that it unites two regions usually researched separately – the Balkans as part of Southeast European studies, and the South Caucasus as part of Black Sea or Caucasus studies – under one cognitive umbrella which I call ‘Eurasia Minor’. The latter’s countries and regions are frequently considered the last strongholds of European patriarchy, with the exception of Russia. Astonishingly enough, comparative studies of gender relations in these two regions are rare. The author of these lines is no exception. In my studies on Balkan patriarchy (Kaser, 1995, 2000, 2008), I have rarely paid attention to patriarchal structures in the Caucasus area. This traditional cognitive division no longer seems adequate as the joint Ottoman historical legacy unites these regions and countries more than it divides them, especially in relation to social institutions such as the family and kinship bonds. Due to this legacy, geographically connected with the southeastern fringes of Europe and the southwestern fringes of Asia, and because they represent the Eurasian continent in nuce, I have subsumed this conglomerate of countries under the heading ‘Eurasia Minor’ (Kaser, 2008).

State of Research The most frequently cited passages in the research history of femininities and masculinities are found in the final section of Chapter 8 of Raewyn Connell’s 1987 book, Gender and Power (Connell, 1987). In these six pages (183–88), Connell introduces the concept of ‘hegemonic masculinity’ and its relation to ‘nonhegemonic masculinities’ and ‘emphasised femininity’. The subsequent canonisation of

State of Research

7

the concept of hegemonic masculinity, however, also evoked serious criticism (see, for example, Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005; Beasley, 2008; Elias & Beasley, 2009). This was partly due to the fact that Connell’s concept was not fully elaborated in those few pages, and partly because gender scholars deployed it in historically decontextualised ways (Messerschmidt & Messner, 2018, 691, 745–52). In her later writings, especially in Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005), Connell found opportunities to defend and elaborate more on her concept by opening it to historical and geographical refinement, as will be discussed in the next section. As images play a growing role in the social construction of femininities and masculinities, increasing efforts have been made to define visual rhetoric. Today, the social sciences very much focus on visual objects and are examining the relationship between visual images and persuasion and how images act rhetorically on the viewer in an increasingly visual society (Epure & Vasilescu, 2014, 643–47). Therefore, considerable research has been conducted on the social constructions of femininities and masculinities worldwide, especially in the previous two decades, as well as earlier. There is no space here to address the rapidly growing international literature in all its aspects. Instead, I will refer to selected authors and their topics, such as Erving Goffman and his book Gender Advertisements. Although published some 40 years ago, in 1979, it can still be considered seminal. This landmark study by the Canadian sociologist provided, outside the mainstream of his time, another way of coding gender representation in advertisements, concentrating on the way in which non-verbal signals communicate important differences in male and female power (Gill, 2014, 95–96). He called his innovative approach for the examination of gender stereotypes ‘semiotic’ or ‘frame analysis’ (Goffman, 1979, 1–8; Tsichla & Zotos, 2016, 987). Although interest in gender role portrayals in advertising has persisted for many years, the nature of the relationship between gender stereotyping in advertising and role-changing developments in society has not yet been sufficiently studied. Addressing these issues, a study by Martin Eisend (2010) presents a bibliometric analysis of research on gender roles in TV and radio advertising based on 64 primary studies over time. He concludes that parallel to the rise in women’s social status, stereotyping in advertising has indeed decreased over the years because of value changes in society. However, more recent research indicates that stereotypes in advertising are still the consequence of cultural expectations of gender. To be feminine in most cultures means to be emotional, attractive, non-aggressive, and protective, while to be masculine can to some extent be seen as the opposite: powerful, ambitious, successful, rational, and emotionally controlled (Epure & Vasilescu, 2014, 643–44). In Eurasia Minor, similar studies on the visual construction of femininities and masculinities in general – and in relation to advertising specifically – are scarce. One of the reasons for this lack of research is that this kind of study, and more broadly gender studies as such, did not exist in socialism. Therefore, in the initial post-socialist period there was a significant backlog that had to be tackled from scratch, leaving visuality studies to wait. Major studies exist only in connection

8

1 Introduction

with Bulgaria and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The work of Bulgarian visual media researcher, Elza Ibroscheva (Ibroscheva, 2007, 2012, 2013a, 2015), is outstanding because of her critical, feminist focus on the staging of sexualised femininities in advertisements in post-socialist Bulgaria. In her monography (Ibroscheva, 2013b), she extends her observations on Bulgaria to the surrounding Balkan countries. Similarly ground-breaking are some of the studies by Zilka Spahić Šiljak, dealing with the image of women in religious textbooks in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Spahić Šiljak, 2008) and female images in religious magazines (Spahić-Šiljak, 2008). Furthermore, a volume with a Southeast European perspective edited by Nirman Bamburać-Moranjak, Tarik Jusić, and Adla Isanović (Bamburać-Moranjak et  al., 2006) explores the stereotype representation of women in the print media and also contains contributions on visual representation, such as the article by Isanović on gender representation in some of the leading daily newspapers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia (Isanović, 2006). The research mentioned above leaves the impression that the representation of non-Muslim women in mass media across the region is especially sexualised. Another body of research literature deals with Islamic fashion and dress, including veiling. While research has at least addressed textual and discursive modes of representation, visual ones have not yet attracted much scientific attention (Piela, 2010, 91). Among the many authors following the issue of veiling in Turkey, I would like to mention those who have worked most consistently on related topics, such as Özlem Sandıkcı and Güliz Ger (2001, 2005, 2007, 2010) as well as Banu Gökarıksel and Anna Secor (2009, 2010a, b, 2013, 2014, 2015a, b). This short overview seems to suggest that studies of the visual representation of femininities and masculinities are restricted to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, and Turkey. Of course, more literature exists but is very scattered over the countries of Eurasia Minor and over various media genres, leaving the impression that the countries of the South Caucasus are still almost completely absent in this field. This was the case for the Balkan states, Turkey included, in the 1990s, but the number of publications in these countries increased significantly in the 2000s and continued to increase in the 2010s. The nature of the institutions mediating between realia and utopia, which I refer to in Chap. 4, has been only partially and insufficiently investigated. Thus, for instance, the advertising business has been researched, as already mentioned, by Ibroscheva for Bulgaria (2007, 2013b) and by Mihai Coman (2009) for the context of Romania. Similarly, there is no lack of studies on the interrelation of TV advertising and gender roles in Turkey and Greece (Uray & Burnaz, 2003; Nina-Pazarzi & Tsangaris, 2008; Arslan, 2015), but a significant deficit regarding the relationship between realia and utopia. And while various studies have explored the textile industries and their survival strategies under the constraints of capitalism in Bulgaria (Ermann, 2013a, b), Turkey (Gökarıksel & Secor, 2009, 2010a), and eastern Europe (Musiolek, 2004), most are not linked to the realia of everyday life. This short literature review reveals significant imbalances in research emphasis regarding the analysis of femininities and masculinities in Eurasia Minor on the one hand, and their visual representation on the other. Disparities consist, firstly, in the

Theoretical Orientations and Hypotheses

9

overwhelming number of studies related to the Balkans compared to the South Caucasus. The reason for this is obviously grounded in the fact that EU countries such as Bulgaria and Romania and eligible future member states such as Serbia and Albania, as well as former war-torn countries like Bosnia and Herzegovina and, to a much lesser extent, Kosovo, have benefited from surveys sponsored by the EU and international donor organisations. Further disparities stem from the quantitative domination of textual discourse analysis over the investigation of visual discourses, reflecting the much newer nature of visual discourse research compared with the established analysis of textual discourses in newspapers and news magazines. Moreover, research has been largely contained within national boundaries, is patchy, fragmented, erratic, and in many cases reflects the sponsorship interests of international funding organisations.

Theoretical Orientations and Hypotheses As already mentioned, this study questions the widely shared assumption that the remarkable regression in the sphere of gender equality in the Balkans and South Caucasus in the first two decades of post-socialism and in post-Kemalism is ongoing, without the emergence of any significant opposing forces. However, regression like this is likely to cease eventually, potentially clearing a pathway for something new, or even a reverse trend. I decided to write this book because I am strongly convinced that after the ‘wild 1990s’, the not-so-wild 2000s, and the fading influence of the generation that shaped early post-socialism, the regression story should be written anew. People of the latter generation, aged 20–40 in 1990, are now in their third age. The next generation, born around 1990 and aged between 20 and 40 today, has already taken over or soon will assume the helm. As shown in Chap. 4, members of this generation intend to do things differently compared to the generation before them – perhaps not completely differently, but in other ways – though not in all the countries of the region simultaneously nor with the same goals in mind. I chose to depart from the beaten track of gender studies in the region and its overwhelming focus on the analysis of textual discourses. Considering that we live in a digital age and the visual has become at least as important as the textual in our lives – if not even more important – I have placed the visual in the foreground of my investigation, while giving consideration to existing non-visual sociological, demographic, and feminist research. I chose ‘Realia and Utopia’ as part of the subtitle of this book because textual analyses tend to be more realia-based, whereas digital-­ visual ones are more utopia-based, at least in the case of general advertising, TV shows, and mainstream films. Gender relations are best reflected in textual discourse analyses, while femininities and masculinities are far better studied on the basis of their visual representations. Although images and texts have their separate logic, they are inextricably linked with each other and thus constitute a whole. This is not the right place to go into detailed discussion of the explanatory potential of images and texts. However, at least some explanation seems appropriate.

10

1 Introduction

Although both categories, gender relations and femininities/masculinities, are intrinsically related, they partly revolve around different values. Two examples exemplify this. Beauty, for instance, is relevant for both categories; its discursive use to characterise of gender relations, however, is avoided in scholarly literature due to its obviously low usefulness in this connection. In depictions of femininities and masculinities, however, beauty is considered central – in the case of femininities even more central than in the case of masculinities. If we take another important factor such as the gender wage gap, this plays out much better to characterise gender relations than femininities and masculinities. For instance, a wage gap of 10% to the detriment of women impacts more on gender relations than on the visual construction of femininities and masculinities. Bearing in mind that the focus of previous research has been almost exclusively on women as losers in post-socialism and post-Kemalism, I will not primarily explore whether gender relations have worsened at the expense of women, but whether and which social visions of femininity and masculinity have been generated under the new societal, economic, and global constraints. These new ideals will doubtlessly have a significant impact on gender relations and identities, first, because the two fields are intrinsically related, and second, because the reverse impact is apparently less significant. I have split the latter field into two parts (Chaps. 5 and 6) in order to sharpen its content-related contours. In addition, I will not only look at emerging new femininities and masculinities, but also at the agents and agencies involved, i.e. the producers and transmitters – the obstetricians of femininities and masculinities. In the pre-digital age, these agents were primarily ideologists and moralists, while in the digital age they are strongly involved in the media and advertising businesses and conform to the rules of neoliberal capitalism. Their success is based on profit, encouraging them to become keen analysts of society and emerging social and cultural trends. If a gender sociologist produces a poor analysis, their reputation will be harmed; if an advertising company fails, not only reputation is harmed but money is lost. This leads us to the four theoretical orientations of this study of realia and utopia. The first and most relevant relates to the communicative strategies that inspire the use of images. Images as such and without contextualisation do not tell us very much, they are per se relatively powerless and do not necessarily reflect reality. However, despite these limitations they are powerful in their effect. This power is grounded in the idea that we should not look at an image as such but primarily at how the image is used (Stocchetti, 2014, 3, 2017, 38). In other words: ‘Images are not considered as meaningful objects in and of themselves but as part of the process of negotiating social values. Meaning itself becomes a variable dependent on the outcome of this negotiation. Images do not have but are given meaning’ (Stocchetti, 2014, 3). Therefore, we would be misguided to treat images themselves as agents in visual discourses. Not images but their uses should be the focus of our critical attention. Taken away from practices of perception, historical context, empirical linkage with agents, interests, media, spaces, etc., they stand for almost nothing. The epistemological implication lies in shifting our attention from the ‘meaning’ of images to the communicative strategies that inspire the use of images by agents. In doing

Theoretical Orientations and Hypotheses

11

so, analysis of the power relations associated with visual communication is crucial and complex; it is indeterminate but ultimately more reliable if the goal is to assess its impact in society (Stocchetti & Kukkonen, 2011; Stocchetti, 2014, 3–4). The meanings we attach to visual representations depend on the relationship between external and internalised images. External images are images we receive through our biological and cultural ability to see. Internal images are images we have stored; they constitute our ‘internal picture gallery’. Internal images are created by the complex interplay of the neuronal structure of our brain and cultural information. Therefore, image generation in the brain is never neutral or objective, but culture-specific. How we see external images and which meanings we attach to them is widely determined by our internal picture galleries. Visual cultures are formed through collective agreement on the acceptance and rejection of images. Thus, our internal images are usually not the result of individual production; rather, we internalise collective images individually. Although visual cultures can change over time, collective as well as individual image reservoirs do not change very fast because pictures stored in the brain tend to be stable. External images unrelated to our image reservoirs are usually rejected by a cultural filter mechanism, the porosity of which depends on various factors relevant carrier media are the most important ones (Hüther, 2005, 52–53; 2014, 81, 101). All this leads us to conclude that images have the capacity to create and are created permanently and at the same time. In the digital age, this is more relevant than ever before. The second theoretical guideline is rooted in the insight that manhood and womanhood are constantly being shaped; they are the results of socially, historically, and culturally determined behaviours and are formed under complex social influences during a lifetime. As only a small part of gender role differentiation is biologically determined (Connell, 1995, 21), the stability of gender role patterns is almost entirely a matter of socialisation. In this context, socialisation refers to the process through which girls and boys learn their places and roles in society (Hofstede, 2001, 298). And since role norms are social facts, social processes can change them. This happens when agents of socialisation – family, school, or mass media – transmit new expectations (Connell, 1995, 21–28). The social construction of femininities and masculinities is strongly related to the presentation of the self on SNSs, but even more powerfully to their ideal visual representation on TV, in films, popular magazines and newspapers, textbooks, religious publications, and all kinds of advertising, among other things. Modes of self-­ presentation on SNSs cannot be analysed here since research on this field is still lacking in the region, with the exception of Turkey. Recent studies on Turkey have shown that shifts are taking place in the spheres of privacy and intimacy enabled by a new visio-sexual culture (Sehlikoglu, 2015). For example, a study of social media users in a city in the southeast suggests that they use these media to reaffirm conservative femininity and masculinity ideals (Costa, 2016, 56–60). In contrast, research on practices in the Muslim fashion business has indicated that social media are used to promote a modern Muslim femininity type (Crăciun, 2019). As mentioned above, public institutions and media constitute important agencies, with a not always

12

1 Introduction

transparent agenda, providing meaning to the images they distribute and propagate. Chapter 4 will deal exclusively with the most relevant agencies of this kind. Larger parts of this study relate to the role of advertisements in the social construction of femininities and masculinities. Aspects of advertising theory can help us to understand some of the limitations of the transmission processes between realia and utopia and vice versa. Advertising theory asks, for instance, whether utopia is the mirror of a given society or, on the contrary, if it moulds a new society. There are good arguments for the mirror approach (Eisend, 2010; Epure & Vasilescu, 2014, 643–44). However, there are also strong arguments for the ‘mould’ dimension: we are what we see (Morris, 2006, 13–15). Most likely, the truth lies somewhere in the continuum between the ‘mirror’ and the ‘mould’ argument, since advertising as a system of visual representation both reflects and contributes to culture (Zotos & Tsichla, 2014). Media both reflect culture and contribute to its creation, affect and reflect social relations, and do so in an environment in which we have the power to endorse, reject, or modify their messages according to decoding responses conditioned by individual circumstances. Media engage us in our ongoing negotiation between realia and utopia. The third theoretical guideline instructs us that the construction of femininities and masculinities follows certain principles. There are no universal forms of femininity and masculinity in real life. To collect all their forms and expressions over time and space would constitute a nearly endless and unaccomplishable task, primarily because research on the geographical and temporal dynamics of femininities and masculinities is still in its beginnings. In the early 2000s, the empirical base of research on masculinities was greatly diversified to include, for example, studies on Australia (Donaldson & Tomsen, 2003), China (Louie, 2002), Japan (Roberson & Suzuki, 2003), Latin America (Gutmann, 1996; Viveros Vigoya, 2001), and the Middle East (Ghoussoub & Sinclair-Webb, 2000). Similar studies on femininities are still lacking (Gill & Scharff, 2013a, b, 1–17). This observation does not mean that studies on (new) femininity and concepts of the geographies of femininities do not exist. Evidence of the former is a seminal collected volume edited by Rosalind Gill and Christina Scharff (2011a, b, 2013a, b) on new femininities, including empirical transcontinental case studies that emphasise the plurality of femininities emerging under conditions of neoliberalism and subjectivity, when individuals are left alone to establish and maintain values with which to live and make sense of their daily lives (Gill & Scharff, 2011a, b, 1–9). Pertinent in this regard is the book Geographies of New Femininities (Laurie et al., 2014). Its point of departure is the concept of multiple or fractured femininities which are caused by the instabilities and contradictions of the social construction of femininity in time and place. Therefore, feminist geographers (ibid., 4) argue that femininities are socially, historically, and geographically constituted and suggest a threefold typology of the ways in which geographies and femininities are mutually impacted. Femininities are forged differently (1) within different countries, (2) in and through particular spaces, sites, and networks, and (3) through cultural discourses such as the idea that femininity is attached to the home (ibid., 12).

Theoretical Orientations and Hypotheses

13

This concept of multiple or fractured femininities in some ways contradicts Connell’s original concept, mentioned above, of hegemonic forms of femininity and masculinity which influence each other as men’s and women’s attitudes and behaviours (Connell, 1987, 1995, 26–31; Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005, 848; Messerschmidt & Messner, 2018, 734–46). The critical discussion of her concept led, among things, to the deeper elaboration of nonhegemonic masculinities and to her acknowledgement of historical and geographical dynamics and their impact on hegemonic and nonhegemonic masculinities: ‘… gender hierarchies were subject to change. Hegemonic masculinities therefore came into existence in specific circumstances and were open to historical change. More precisely, there could be a struggle for hegemony, and older forms of masculinity might be displaced by new ones’ (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005, 836–46). Ten years before Laurie came up with her concept, Connell suggested a less refined kind of geographical approach, namely to study empirically existing hegemonic masculinities at the levels of the local (face-to-face interaction), the regional (culture or the nation-state), and the global (transnational arenas) (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005, 849). This geographical classification is relatively simple, but the investigation of the links between these levels is not: ‘Global institutions pressure regional and local gender orders; while regional gender orders provide cultural materials adopted or reworked in global arenas and provide models of masculinity that may be important in  local gender dynamics.’ This implies that on local and regional levels hegemonic masculinity manifests itself in varying forms, whereas on a global scale hegemonic masculinity is a representation of society’s ideals of male behaviour (ibid.). What we can learn from these two different approaches against the backdrop of contemporary Western societies is (1) that the attributes ‘multiple’ and ‘fractured’ are applied to femininities (Laurie) and ‘hegemonic’ to masculinities (Connell); (2) that even multiple and fractured femininities must have hegemonic qualities otherwise we would not recognise them; (3) that no single femininity or masculinity exists in time and space, but instead adapts to temporal and spatial conditions. The first theoretical orientation underlying the present study relates to visual communication in the digital age and to the power of images, the second to the modes of the social construction of femininities and masculinities, and the third to the principles of their construction. The fourth orientation refers to a field in which the power and social construction of images unfold in the region, namely in the visual construction of the seemingly antagonistic and exemplary distinction between two hegemonic visual cultures of femininity and masculinity  – a ‘pornified’ or ‘porno-chic’ culture and a ‘veiling culture’ (distinction made by Duits & van Zoonen, 2006, 104–6). In other words, researchers observe an increasing polarisation concerning the visuality and visual representation of femininities and masculinities in the region between people with a seemingly casual approach to the exposure of the body in public and social groups who think that the body should be covered in the public sphere. In both cultures, the construction of femininities is more exposed to this polarisation than the construction of masculinities (McNair, 2002, 2014; Attwood, 2014a, b). The extent of covering the body is only one aspect, but obviously a crucial one, of the social and cultural construction of femininities

14

1 Introduction

and masculinities because almost every decision in this regard is related to symbolic meanings. ‘Pornified’ or ‘porno-chic’ culture describes the ways in which sex as an end in itself has become more visible in contemporary Western cultures. This transformation of gender ideology in the digital age has been accompanied by a tendency to stress sexuality in the media and in SNSs as a normalising trend. Whereas the ‘sexualisation of culture’ or ‘hyper-sexualisation’ refers to a wide range of cultural phenomena, ‘pornification’ is a more specific term indicating the increased visibility of hardcore and softcore pornographies, and the blurring of boundaries between pornographic and mainstream practices. This shift of boundaries has led to the pornographisation of media culture. The display of the female midriff in advertising and through fashion items such as crop tops, thongs, low-rider jeans, tiny bikinis, and provocative T-shirts is a succinct example of this kind of pornographisation on the one hand, and, as has been stressed even by feminist scholarship, of the empowerment of women on the other. New femininities depict women as active, desiring sexual subjects who seem to participate enthusiastically in practices and forms of self-representation (Ringrose, 2013; Jackson & Vares, 2013; Gill, 2014, 95–99, 107). At the other end of the new femininities spectrum, studies of the new veiling phenomenon, especially among various Muslim communities, emphasise several common features. Most notably, veiling is not necessarily about a general return to traditions of covering the body and the confinement of women to the home, but to a significant extent constitutes a voluntary act of self-assertion through the adoption of a form of dress that signals respectability – an image of modesty and chastity – while enabling the wearer to lead an active public life. Studies point out that today’s Islamic dress, far from being traditional, reflects innovation by the younger generation of women who use the change of clothing to accentuate their identity and respond to a changing world (Sandıkcı & Ger, 2001, 2005). Contemporary commercial representations of tesettürlü women (women who respect religious clothing prescriptions) in Turkey portray a modern consumer actively seeking a fashionable and chic look (Sandıkcı & Ger, 2007, 190). In the West, however, practices of covering the body inspired by Islamic culture have often been interpreted as a form of oppression, non-modernity, or political threat – or as the exotic ‘other’. The so-called headscarf debate has not only revealed sharp differences between France and Canada and the United States (Dunand Zimmerman, 2015), and between Europe and the US (Piela, 2010), but also obvious essentialist parallels between West European countries (Fournier, 2013; Selby, 2014). Orientalist and neo-colonial concerns about the societal integration of Muslims often deprive Muslim women of agency and essentialise Muslims as a single homogeneous block when in fact they constitute a very diverse camp (Ajala, 2017, 1). However, researchers state that women’s identities cannot be reduced to the binary of veiled/unveiled but need to be understood in relation to other social identities such as class, ethnicity, age, and sexual orientation (Dunand Zimmerman, 2015, 148). The antagonistic or seemingly antagonistic distinction between a hegemonic ‘pornified’ or ‘porno-chic’ female culture and a hegemonic female ‘veiling culture’

Theoretical Orientations and Hypotheses

15

has not only found the approval of some feminists but also provoked fierce reactions against ‘neo-colonial’ feminists who have allegedly directly condemned veiling culture as patriarchal and the veil as an instrument of women’s oppression. To summarise these reactions: some feminists argue that the veil and the bra top are really two sides of the same coin; make-up, dieting, and cosmetic surgery should be understood as ‘harmful cultural practices’ comparable to ‘non-Western’ practices such as female genital mutilation and veiling (Pedwell, 2013, 188–89). Linda Duits and Liesbet van Zoonen claim that girls wearing headscarves and those dressed in ‘porno-chic’ are similarly ‘submitted to the meta-narratives of dominant discourse’ which define their everyday practices and behaviours as inappropriate and deny them the power to define their own action (Duits & van Zoonen, 2006, 103). Carolyn Pedwell, however, refuses this hypothesis of the original sameness of female oppression (whether as porno-chic or veiling-chic) and concludes that analogies which link ‘Western’ and ‘Muslim’ embodied practices often have the effect of replacing problematic difference with problematic sameness (Pedwell, 2013, 188–89). If there is no common logic behind porno-chic and veiling, do they indeed represent conflicting femininities and, to a minor extent, masculinities, at all? In this regard we should be aware of two important factors. First, in some countries with a predominantly Muslim population and a socialist past, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Kosovo, and Azerbaijan, only a minority of women is attracted by veiling culture. In Turkey, the situation appears slightly different, especially in the countryside. According to recent estimates, approximately 70% of women cover their hair in public (Vojdik, 2010, 667). Second, fashion is a pars pro toto for lifestyle, but behind fashion and the visual representation of masculinities and femininities stand powerful capitalist interests: the business interests of digitised visuality as well as of the fashion industries, which have concluded temporary alliances with pronounced post-socialist and post-Kemalist ideas. Taking up Reina Lewis’s question about whether these alliances will merge into a ‘convergence culture’ (2015, 109–110), I will look at whether such a culture is emerging given that there are now more ways than ever of following lifestyle media and more people and groups willing and able to participate in creating culture through widespread Internet accessibility. To draw an interim conclusion: it has become obvious that all four theoretical guidelines allow for or even contain a plea for change rather than accept a permanent status quo for utopia. The power of images depends on certain meanings we attach to them, the social construction of femininities and masculinities change in space and time, and the apparent antagonism of the hegemonic femininity and masculinity cultures expressed in porno-chic and veiling have the potential to merge into a kind of convergence culture. Against the backdrop of regional developments and in the light of these theoretical orientations, provided primarily by Western scholars, I would like to formulate three context-based hypotheses that argue for change. The first is the ‘backlash compensation’ hypothesis. Gender relations, sexual morality, femininity and masculinity in Eurasia Minor have passed through a phase of conservative morality, retraditionalisation, and desecularisation, fuelled among

16

1 Introduction

other things by pronounced anti-liberal and religious values (Simkus, 2007, 2015) since the late 1980s and early 1990s. Therefore, the countries of Eurasia Minor have been temporarily more conservative or patriarchally oriented than other European regions, especially compared with the northwest of the continent. This trend has meanwhile started to turn. The second is the neo-secularism hypothesis relating to the nature of religious revitalisation. Here, two aspects deserve our attention. The first is the question of how deep-seated revitalised religions can be after many decades of having been abolished from the field of social relevance. I suggest considering an approach that distinguishes between top-down and bottom-up mechanisms in relation to the revitalisation of religious life. In simplified terms: while the revitalisation of Islam in Turkey has progressed from the bottom up, the revitalisation of Islam and Eastern Christianity in the post-socialist countries has been rather top-down. Therefore, after a wave of desecularisation, I believe that secularism will regain ground in the post-socialist countries more easily than in Turkey where the process of desecularisation, already initiated in the 1980s, is proceeding. The second aspect is the sometimes overlooked distinction between orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Christianity is basically orthodox, whereas Islam is basically orthodox and orthopraxic. The former focuses on the correct spiritual orientation of believers, whereas the latter addresses the spiritual as well as the everyday behaviour of the faithful. In Islam, detailed regulations exist for the everyday behaviour of the community, especially for men and women in the public sphere. And while in Christianity the public display of femininity and masculinity is an important but not central issue, in Islam public visual display is of vital concern. The third hypothesis is the ‘equilibrium’ hypothesis which emerges from the observation of pendular movements from one extreme (ideologised gender equality and ultra-secularism) to the other (retraditionalisation of gender relations and ultra-­ religiosity) to ultimately rest at an equilibrium point or intermediate position (mild gender antagonism and mild neo-secularism). In these pendular movements, both realia and utopia exert an effect: realia as a persistent, and utopia as a dynamic, force. Assuming that we are not dealing with a simple cause and effect relationship between utopia and realia, I argue that these dynamic pendular movements are triggered by a broad variety of social factors. With the metaphor of the pendular movement in mind, I venture the prognosis that after a temporary regression phase, denominated ‘repatriarchisation’ or ‘retraditionalisation’, the idea of a society that is more gender-balanced is already gaining ground in the countries of Eurasia Minor – in some countries faster, in others at a slower pace. The theoretical and hypothetical considerations introduced above provide the composition and exposition of my thesis with a structure that continually shimmers through – sometimes less, sometimes more explicitly. The book is composed of six chapters. The second sketches the regional context of Eurasia Minor in its temporal and spatial dimensions so that readers not quite familiar with the region are provided with a useful overview of the relevant historical and contemporary forces that shape and structure people’s scope of action. It begins by presenting some demographic characteristics and goes on to describe the pluralistic and constantly

Theoretical Orientations and Hypotheses

17

changing ethnic and religious composition of the region that once roughly comprised the non-Arabic parts of the Ottoman Empire. This will be followed by a short analysis of the transformations – economic, political, and social – which have confronted the population over the past three decades. These transformations have changed the lives, living conditions, and life perspectives of most people. The singular and collective identities of men and women have also been touched by these turbulences and, occasionally, the reformulation of societal ideals has proved only ephemeral – at least in the former socialist parts of the region. Meanwhile, times have quietened, not least due to the establishment of new legal frameworks despite some shortcomings in their implementation. For example, legal regulations aimed at supressing the hyper-sexualised portrayal of the female body are prone to deficits. Women’s movements trying to call attention to the commercial exploitation of women’s bodies are still marginalised but can refer to crucial achievements, as will be outlined in this chapter. The task of the third chapter is to inform the reader about the realia of gender and family relations. Meanwhile, patriarchy is no longer only a qualitative category but has become a measurable, quantitative category, the intensity of which can be expressed in statistics. The combination of qualitative and quantitative access to patriarchal structures has resulted in the broadening of the category of patriarchy, thus opening the way to a better understanding of the mechanisms of women’s discrimination. It is well known that feminist research and gender sociology have intensively explored textual discourses and ideologies that play a significant role in the affirmation of gender relations and in the social construction of femininities and masculinities. The third chapter will therefore trace strong threads of discourse primarily based on textual source material, before visual discourses are tackled in Chaps. 5 and 6. In addition, this chapter will investigate demographic data, which aside from revealing general trends indicating convergences with ‘European’ patterns of, for instance, fertility and procreation, also reflects quite unique patterns in relation to the frequency and sex-selective nature of abortions, as well as to nuptiality and divorce, and premarital sex and contraception. The fourth chapter’s key functions are to describe and analyse the composition and intentions of some of the designers, producers, agents, and transmitters of visualisations of femininities and masculinities, and to connect realia with utopia and vice versa. Who is interested in creating and selling utopia, and what are its sources? The chapter will explore the structure of the media and the media players in the region, the shift towards digital advertising and e-commerce in the advertising and fashion industries, the survival of lifestyle and women’s magazines, and the emergence of softcore pornography and turbo-folk. In addition, it looks at the revitalised film industry in Turkey and some of its products. However, alongside the dominant private sector there is a vast public sector consisting of non-commercial national TV broadcasters and educational institutions in charge of producing textbooks. Here, the major religions are active, eager to defend their pious and moral interests that are sometimes in conflict with dominant secular trends. Chapter 5 on veiling-chic culture will focus primarily on Turkey. By far the largest country of the region, it is especially interesting as Turkish media are still

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1 Introduction

overwhelmingly secularly oriented, though confronted with a constantly growing Islamic media segment. Therefore, the first part deals with the embattled public space between secularist and Islamic representations of femininities and masculinities, which are not as contradictory as these lines may suggest. This will be extended by a short overview of Islamic visual culture in a secular state with an Islamic government. The next section presents a survey of contemporary Islamic fashion and lifestyles which appear to question Islamic values of modesty – topics of frequent and fierce debate within orthodox circles. Finally, the chapter draws attention to emerging new Muslim femininities in the context of a globalising fashion industry. Chapter 6 turns to the seemingly opposite end of the continuum of the visual representation of femininities and masculinities. It deals with porno-chic cultures and focuses on countries in which the return of religion has been rather top-down and has partly served the logic of capitalism, undisturbed by religious interference. This chapter will first present a brief overview of the hegemonic visual representation of femininity and masculinity and will then discuss the effects of post-socialist market economies and media landscapes on visual representation strategies. To say that the decade of the ‘wild 1990s’ was characterised by the strategy of ‘sex sells’ is hardly an exaggeration. Neglected in socialist times, the body, especially the female one, was highlighted. Visual ideals influenced by pornography emerged in popular culture – as clearly demonstrated in Serbian turbo-folk and Bulgarian chalga music. The subsequent bibliometric analysis indicates a paradigm shift towards new femininities and masculinities from the 2010s – the outcome of a process of intensified interaction between realia and utopia, of the repressed and the violent on the one hand, and the ‘beauty’ and the ‘adventurer’ on the other. The findings of this combined qualitative/quantitative analysis of the mutual impact of realia and utopia provide reasons to believe that further developments will be ambiguous. However, it is evident that new utopia of femininity and masculinity have emerged that will definitely question the realia of retraditionalised gender relations.

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Chapter 2

The Balkans and South Caucasus – Eurasia Minor

Abstract  This chapter intends to sketch the emerging situation in the 15 Eurasia Minor countries in the two decades between approximately 1990 and 2010, and the legal, political, social, and economic framework in which masculinities and femininities, gender relations, and their visual representations were reformulated and started to assume new self-definitions. The first section provides a short overview of the ethnic and religious composition of the region’s population of 160 million. The second section will look at the economic, political, and social transformations which have had a significant impact on conceptualisations of gender and the roles of men and women in temporarily impoverished societies (taking into account factors of employment and unemployment, the gender wage gap, drastically increasing labour migration, trafficking, and prostitution). The third section will sketch a few issues connected to the legal status of men and women in the region. The normative dimension is meanwhile firmly rooted in the principle of the equality of men, women, and people of other sexual orientations. The final section will look at the temporary withdrawal of women from the public and political spheres, and the masculinisation of the public sphere with women as the erotic companions of successful men. The Balkans and South Caucasus constitute, for the purpose of this book, a group of 15 countries1 stretching from the Dinaric Alps to the Caucasus Mountains and bordering on the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea. For almost 25 centuries, these countries shared a joint history united under the roofs of pre-Roman empires such as in the Macedonian Empire of Alexander the Great and his successors, and later in the Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, and Soviet empires. From the fourth century AD until the early twentieth century, Constantinople/Istanbul constituted the geographical, administrative, economic, and spiritual centre of this conglomerate of countries. These 15 countries are inhabited by 160 million people (2020), which is about the population of Russia (146 million). The population doubled between 1950 (74.6 1  Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, and Turkey.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 K. Kaser, Femininities and Masculinities in the Digital Age, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78412-6_2

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million) and 2020, mostly due to the population increase in Turkey from 21 to 84 million. Turkey and Azerbaijan have the highest fertility rate (2.0 births per woman in 2020), compared to the average fertility rate in the region (1.5). These two countries (plus Cyprus) are the only ones whose population will increase until 2050. Therefore, in view of the population decrease projected for the other countries, the number of inhabitants in the region will increase to only 173.1 million in 2050. In that year, Eurasia Minor will have approximately the same population as Egypt (166.5 million). The most drastic population decrease is predicted for Bulgaria (−22.92%) and Moldova (−18.51%), compared to an increase of +16.74% for Turkey. Between 2050 and 2100, the population will drop in all the countries of the region, falling to 136.5 million.2 Except Greece and Turkey, the countries of Eurasia Minor experienced socialism according to the Soviet blueprint – only Yugoslavia developed its own version of a socialist state and society. Both the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia collapsed quite suddenly, falling apart as their constituent territorial and political units claimed independence. The 1991 political landscape of Eurasia Minor was already quite different to that of 1989. The disintegration of the multi-ethnic Soviet Union and of Yugoslavia could not have occurred without conflicts, wars, and tensions that continue into the present. From a European perspective, the wars in the former Yugoslavia (1991–1999) were the first on European soil since the Second World War almost half a century earlier. From the vantage point of the Caucasus countries, the wars in the southern Caucasus – South Ossetia’s and Abkhazia’s wars of secession from Georgia (1991–1992 and 1992–1993) and the Nagorno-Karabakh War between Armenians and Azeris (1991–1994) – interrupted a similar long period of peace on the southern periphery of the Soviet Union. These violent events, besides war atrocities and countless victims, also caused the displacement of numerous civilians. The number of persons displaced by the Yugoslav wars amounts to around four million (Phuong, 2004, 156–68). In the South Caucasus, the number of displaced persons is estimated at 1.5 million, most of them driven from their homes by the Nagorno-Karabakh War (Sammut, 2001, 56–57). Besides these tragic events, half of today’s states in Eurasia Minor became independent from the ruling powers: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia split from Yugoslavia; Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Moldova broke away from the Soviet Union. The foremost challenge for these new countries was to strengthen and defend their borders, and to establish governmental structures and functioning administrations. At the same time, they initiated a transformation from socialism to democracy, from bureaucratic one-party centralism to pluralistic structures, and from a state-directed economy to liberal capitalism. The long-term aim was to transform a socialist society into a liberal democracy that fitted the West European blueprint.

2  United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, World Population Prospects 2019 https://population.un.org/wpp/Download/Probabilistic/Population/ (accessed on 15 July 2020).

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During this period, Turkey, too, reached a turning point. In 1978, the rule of the Western-oriented Pahlavi dynasty governing Turkey’s powerful neighbour, Iran, began to crumble, and the Islamic Revolution was proclaimed the following year. Although this was a Shi’a revolution and Turkish Muslims are predominantly Sunni, the nearby events did not leave the secularist Turkish Republic untouched. A decade later, Islam in Turkey had recovered from decades-long suppression by the secular state, regained visibility, and Islamic political parties had started to openly claim power. Under the label of Islamic modernism, the policy of Westernisation was increasingly questioned. Parallel to the intensification of relations with the EC/EU, the political, cultural, and economic role of Islam increased, fuelling scepticism in the country about the fulfilment of preconditions for possible EU membership. Greece remained relatively untouched by all these developments until late 1990 and the beginning of 1991, when Albanians from the former socialist republic of Albania started to cross the border in rapidly increasing numbers, seeking employment and eventually residence permits. The integration of around half a million Albanian migrants challenged the population of a country that was traditionally thought of as an emigration and not a receiving country. Greek society saw more unrest when additional migrants from Bulgaria and Romania arrived – unaware that an intensification of immigration was to be expected over the coming 20–25 years. This chapter intends to sketch the emerging situation in the 15 Eurasia Minor countries in the two decades between approximately 1990 and 2010, and the legal, political, social, and economic framework in which masculinities and femininities, gender relations, and their visual representations were reformulated and started to find new self-definitions. The first section will provide a short overview of the ethnic and religious composition of the region’s population of 160 million. Since the ethnic composition has no discernible impact on gender configurations, this outline will be kept brief, whereas the religious composition will receive more attention as relations between religious affiliation and the understanding of femininities and masculinities are much more evident. The second section will look at the economic, political, and social transformations which have had a significant impact on conceptualisations of gender and the roles of men and women in temporarily impoverished societies. It will emphasise processes of economic transition and their effect on the specific challenges of the countries under discussion: employment and unemployment, the gender wage gap, drastically increasing labour migration, trafficking, and prostitution. The third section will sketch a few issues connected to the legal status of men and women in the region. Legal relations between men and women within and beyond a formal marriage relationship constitute a matter with normative and customary dimensions. The normative dimension is meanwhile firmly rooted in the principle of the equality of men, women, and people of other sexual orientations. However, everyday practice frequently diverges from legal stipulations, especially regarding LGBTIQ people. The final section will look at the withdrawal of women from the public and political spheres, and a possibly unwanted consequence: the masculinisation of the public sphere with women as erotic topping of successful men. In a climate of the

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general affirmation of male dominance, it has become nearly impossible for feminist-­minded women to be fully accepted and broadly supported as political players.

Ethnic and Religious Composition The current ethnic and religious composition of the population of Eurasia Minor is the result of the continuous immigration of ethnic groups from northeastern and eastern parts of Europe as well as from inner Asia over centuries. In addition, population movements from the Caucasus area to Europe started at the beginning of the second millennium BC, with the westward migration of Indo-European peoples. Migration in the opposite direction was rare.

Ethnicities and Nations Most of Eurasia Minor’s nations originated in the wider Caucasus area and Inner Asia. The oldest documented peoples to appear in the Balkans were the Greeks, Albanians, and Romanians – all Indo-Europeans. Centuries later, in the sixth and seventh centuries AD, the Indo-European Slavs moved into the Balkans and Eastern Europe to form the numerically dominant population in the Balkan territories. Five contemporary Eurasia Minor countries have Slavic languages as their dominant tongues: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia (Kaser, 2008, 15). In the ninth century, the Magyars (ibid., 16), and in the eleventh, Turkish tribal associations –  both originating in Inner Asia  – started to settle in the Pannonian Plain and Anatolia respectively. Among others, Turkish and Azeri people today are considered the descendants of these arriving Turkish-speaking populations. Turkic presence in the Caucasus dates back at least to the seventh century and became stronger with the arrival of Oghuz Turks who appeared in present-day Azerbaijan around the ninth century, and are probably the ancestors of the modern-day Azeri population. A major Turkic power was only established in the region after the Ottoman Turks captured Constantinople in 1453. From the end of the fifteenth century, the eastern Black Sea coast was under Ottoman rule, until the early 1800s. However, the larger parts of today’s Azerbaijan came under Persian domination from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. It is assumed therefore the majority of Azeris are Shi’a. Outsiders called the Azeri people ‘Caucasian Tatars’, ‘Turks’, or just ‘Muslims’ until the mid-nineteenth century when a new educated elite began to articulate a modern Azerbaijani identity and to propagate the use of the name ‘Azerbaijani Turks’ for the first time (de Waal, 2010, 23–28). The Armenian and Georgian peoples are considered natives of the Caucasus. Despite living in close proximity for many centuries, their languages and alphabets

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have no common features. The subjects of various empires, the Armenians, maintained a collective identity through the Armenian Apostolic Church, and a strong literary tradition. From 1828, the territory populated by Armenians  – previously under Persian rule  – was divided between the Russian and the Ottoman empires (ibid., 28–29). Russia retains an influence on Armenian statehood until today, whereas Armenian-Turkish relations since the Ottoman genocide against the Armenian population during the First World War seem forever poisoned. Like the Armenian nation which has its own language, the Georgian nation comprises all people who speak Georgian, a language with its own alphabet. Alongside the Armenians, the Georgians were the earliest Christianised population in the region. While Armenian Christians are monophysite, the Georgian Orthodox Church follows the Byzantine Orthodox tradition. Georgia was also attached to the Persian and Ottoman empires. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Persian rule was replaced by Russian with Tbilisi as the centre of the Russian-governed province of Trans-(South)-Caucasus (Matveeva, 2002; de Waal, 2010, 46–49). This short overview shows that the small peoples of Eurasia Minor were dominated by powerful empires for most of their history. Unlike the new states of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, these empires were composed of a variety of ethnic groups and did not aim to establish nation-states. This pluralistic principle also extends to the religious sphere.

Religions If statistics are to be trusted, and why not, Eurasia Minor is the European region comprising the highest percentages of self-declared religious believers. A Gallup survey conducted in 2008–2009 asked people across Europe whether religion was important in their daily lives. Only 16% of Estonians said yes. Together with other Nordic countries, the country was at the bottom of the European scale, whereas Eurasia Minor countries were at the top with Georgia and Kosovo (90% agreement) in the lead.3 More than half of the population of Eurasia Minor is Muslim. Turkey (about 85 million) and Azerbaijan (roughly ten million) contribute most to this figure. Several million Muslims live in Albania, Kosovo, and Bulgaria, with small populations in Georgia, Greece, North Cyprus, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, and Serbia. Orthodox Christianity constitutes the second largest religious group with 50 to 55 million adherents. Around 87% of Romanians belong to the Orthodox Church, making their national church the largest in the European Union and the second largest in the world after the Russian Orthodox Church. Roman Catholics add up to just over half a million people, mostly in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Albania. Judaism was largely wiped out by the Shoah and migration to Palestine/Israel or other

 https://worldview.gallup.com (accessed on 15 July 2020).

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countries, especially after the Second World War and during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992–1995) (Stan & Vancea, 2013, 87). Balkan Muslim populations are very diverse. The great majority are Sunni Muslim; there are also small groups of Bektashi4 (Albania, Kosovo) and Alevi5 (Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey) (Bougarel, 2005, 1–3). In terms of linguistic differentiation, Albanian-speakers form the largest Muslim community today, with their language spoken widely in Albania, Kosovo, and North Macedonia. The Slavic language group is the second largest, dominated by speakers in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also consisting of small groups of Slavic-speakers in Kosovo, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Greece. Turkish-speakers account for slightly less than a quarter of the Muslim population of the region, with significant numbers in Bulgaria and Greece, and enclaves in Kosovo and North Macedonia (Öktem, 2011, 159–60). Since 1989, Islam has celebrated a remarkable, though contradictory, revival in the post-socialist countries. Despite the welcome Islamic renaissance, the reintroduction of sharia courts was not seriously envisaged anywhere, and the educational system has remained strictly secular in most Balkan countries. The authoritarian secularisation of the socialist period could not be undone. The revival of Islamic religious institutions has been particularly evident in Bulgaria and Albania, despite the latter’s pronounced atheistic, socialist tradition (Bougarel, 2005, 1–3). With a slightly different background, revival in Bosnia and Herzegovina can be traced back to President Tito’s policy of non-alignment, which moved the country close to Muslim states such as Egypt and Indonesia in the late 1960s and early 1970s (Kaser, 2019a, 105–6). The emerging Muslim elite advocated the implementation of re-Islamisation policies. However, these tentative steps were strongly resisted by the Bosnian population (Bougarel, 2005, 1–3), although the revival of religious morality resulted in a reconsideration of the role of women and traditional family values. Women were to reassume their ‘natural’ position in the home and family (Spahić-Šiljak, 2014, 189) – a demand that has been opposed by many Bosnian Muslim women (Bartulović, 2015, 275–9). Turning to the most eastern country of Eurasia Minor, Azerbaijan, the results of a 2012 Gallup poll showed it to be one of the most tolerant Muslim countries (with a Muslim population of 95%), and among the eleven least religious countries in the world. Due to its secular orientation, there is no religious influence on political life (Ismayilov, 2015, 96–97). The majority of the population belong to Shi’a Islam (65%), which is especially strong in the Baku region. A survey published in 2008 of 600 young people in Baku aged 16–35 indicated that the majority of respondents considered themselves Muslim without distinguishing between the two branches of Islam. The weakening of the divide between the Shi’a and Sunni faiths has its roots

 Bektashi – a Sufi order widespread in the Ottoman Empire; today primarily based in Albania.  Alevi  – aside from Sunnis, the second largest group of Muslims in Turkey; a branch of Shi’a Islam, with adherents also in the Balkan countries. 4 5

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in the long period of Soviet rule, when religious practice was severely restricted (Cornell, 2006, 12–13; Heyat, 2008, 363–5). Turkey is by far the largest Muslim country in the region. Kemal Mustafa Pasha, known as Atatürk, liberated the country from foreign occupation after the First World War. As its first autocratic president, he adapted Islam to the needs of a secular state in the 1920s – the public sphere was institutionalised and imagined as a site where a secular and progressive way of life would be implemented. Religious symbols were removed, practices silenced, and modern codes of conduct entered public spaces. A modern, gendered subject was created along with new role models for women demanding other language styles, dress codes, and modes of address; women’s participation in public life, physical visibility, and social mixing with men were all seen as ‘modern’ (Göle, 2002, 176–7). Until then stigmatised as uncivilised and backward, women were urged to remove their veils and to adopt Western fashions. Formal rules and laws prohibited veiling in spaces such as university campuses, courts, and the parliament. The removal of the veil, the establishment of compulsory coeducation for girls and boys, civil rights for women (e.g. the right to vote and to hold office), and the abolition of Islamic family law guaranteed the public visibility of women (Secor, 2002, 9). In the 1980s, however, fuelled by the Islamic Revolution in neighbouring Iran, a revivalist movement prompted the resurgence of Islam in the public sphere. The movement argued that modernisation did not necessarily entail secularisation and that the display of religiosity was not antithetical to modernity. In the political constellation of the 1980s, this found fertile ground and triggered a departure from the strict secularism of the previous period, leading to the reopening of religious orders, compulsory religious instruction in primary and secondary schools, an increase in the number of Islamic high schools and the opening of universities for their graduates (Crăciun, 2017, 27). In the municipal elections of 1994 and 1999, the Islamist party won control of Istanbul’s municipal government (Secor, 2002, 9–10), with later prime minister and president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, as mayor. Parallel to the revival of Islam, Orthodox Christianity emerged as a conservative social force after 1989. In Bulgaria, Greece, Moldova, Romania, Serbia, Georgia, and Armenia more than 70% of citizens identify themselves as Orthodox Christian. The Orthodox Church does not constitute a single dominant church, among other things due to the fact that the Orthodox community in Bulgaria (Broun, 1993), Moldova (Panainte, 2006), North Macedonia (Payne, 2007), Ukraine, and other former Soviet republics (Stan, 2010) is divided in terms of its institutional allegiance between several competing Orthodox churches, each headed by a metropolitan or an archbishop. In contrast, most Orthodox Greeks, Romanians, Serbs, Georgians, and Armenians belong to undivided national churches that act like state churches, although they are not recognised as such in any of these countries. Except Greece, these countries have gone through divergent post-socialist political experiences. Thus, in Serbia, a country affected by war in the 1990s, domestic factors have taken precedence over international influence. At the time, the Serbian Orthodox Church strongly promoted Serbian identity and endorsed interethnic conflict. At the other end of the spectrum are Romania and Bulgaria, which joined the

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EU in January 2007 after conforming to a range of accession requirements including the protection of religious minority rights and recognition of LGBTIQ rights (ibid., 39). The status of the Armenian Orthodox Church is singular in Eurasia Minor insofar as, in contrast to the Orthodox churches in the Byzantine tradition, it is a Monophysite church – like the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt. The Armenian constitution and the 1991 Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organisations (amended in 1997 and 2001) provides for the freedom of religion and confirms the separation of church and state, but declares the Armenian Church to be the ‘national church of the Armenian people’ (Sarkissian, 2008, 168–9; Charles, 2010). Similarly, the Georgian constitution recognises the unique role of the Georgian Orthodox Church, and the 2002 Concordat concluded with the government provides the church with a privileged status among the religious communities (Charles, 2010; Grdzelidze, 2010, 160–69). The Orthodox churches share a frequently quoted but rarely critically reflected anti-Western attitude, historically related to the Great Schism of 1054, whereas most governments and leaders are inclined to the West. However, contemporary Orthodox anti-Westernism is not directed against the idea of Europe as such, but against the specific conception and construction of Europe promulgated and disseminated by the West (Makrides & Uffelmann, 2003, 95–109). The Roman Catholics of Eurasia Minor are overwhelmingly represented in Bosnia and Herzegovina where Croats constitute the largest percentage: around 15% of the overall population. Here, the Franciscan order has played a prominent role in the past and into the present. The Bosnian Croats are politically and ideologically roughly divided into two separate branches: numerous Croats advocate a unified Bosnia and Herzegovina and explicitly condemn Croat nationalist extremism. By contrast, the Franciscans of western Herzegovina, allied with the fascists in the Second World War, support a form of Croat separatism in Herzegovina (Perica, 2015, 16). These Franciscans are prominent among right-wing, conservative circles and are known for their association with the miracle of Medjugorje (Perica, 2006, 325), still officially unrecognised by the Church. Beyond their theological agendas, the main religions have social ambitions and preferences. They voice societal, political, and even economic questions in varying tonalites and intensity. In the centre of their societal engagement and conservative visions are the roles of men and women, the family, and sexuality. One of the questions this book raises is whether and to what extent they use their increasing role in society to shape retraditionalised visions of femininities and masculinities.

Economic, Political, and Social Transformations One of the most sensitive areas of transformation as political systems shifted from socialist regimes to western-style democracies was the economic sector. Some governments started economic transition immediately after clarification of the regime

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change; other governments hesitated for as long as possible. Eventually, all governments were forced to give up state control of the economy and key industries, and to privatise and sell what might be attractive to Western investors. In this far-­reaching economic transformation process, men and women were affected equally (e.g. through the loss of social security) as well as differently (e.g. through separation into male breadwinners and female consumers). The socialist dogma of gender equality lost attractiveness overnight, while the charm of gender-specific roles was accepted with open arms by the public and especially by the emerging advertising industry which capitalised on the established marketing strategy of sex as a sales pitch. The previously ‘sublime’ socialist sexless body was redefined as a sexualised commodity. This section opens with an overview of some of the difficulties of economic transition and will than address important issues such as male and female unemployment, the problem of gender wage gaps, labour migration, trafficking, and prostitution.

Difficult Economic Transition Data on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) shows significant differences in economic development within the region and between Eurasia Minor and the rest of Europe. Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Romania, and Turkey are by far the most developed countries; the others are situated within a comparable average range, except Armenia, Georgia, Kosovo, and Moldova, which are economically the least developed countries in Europe.6 This poor economic progress is, on the one hand, a consequence of the rather weak development of national economies already in pre-socialist times, and on the other, the outcome of harsh transformation processes. This observation suggests a variety of transformations as socialist command economies shifted into neoliberal forms of capitalism. The chosen or imposed form depended on several factors: internal power relations, the politics of international monetary institutions, economic internationalisation, and involvement or non-­ involvement in armed conflict after the fall of the socialist regimes (Kaser, 2019b, 86). Whatever economic reform path was chosen, economies deteriorated in the course of the first half of the 1990s; after about 2000, however, poverty rates generally began to decrease. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, for example, the percentage of the population below the poverty line reached 19% in 2001, but decreased to 4% in 2002–2003. Absolute poverty, measured as the availability of less than $2.25 per person per day, remained most widespread in Moldova. The country faced the deepest and most prolonged recession of the transition countries and, together with Armenia, is still the poorest European country today. A major portion of the population still cannot afford health care or secondary schooling for its children (ibid., 91).

 http://statisticstimes.com/economy/gdp-indicators-2019.php (accessed on 15 July 2020).

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Ethnic conflicts, civil unrest, and wars, followed by the breakdown of economic cooperation among the republics of the former Soviet Union, made transition much more difficult in the South Caucasus than in the Balkans. Thus, economic recession was profound and recovery prolonged. Even in the late 2000s, more than 15 years after the start of transition, the countries of the region still lagged significantly behind the western republics of the former Soviet Union in terms of economic development (Nazim & Elvin, 2009, 206–8; Asian Development Bank, 2012, 51). Nearly all economies suffered sharp and deep recessions caused by the emerging Eurozone crisis from late summer of 2008. There is some evidence that the countries better integrated into the EU were more affected by the crisis, while the less integrated countries were hardly hit (Kaser, 2019b, 96). Among those countries only loosely integrated into the global economy was Albania, which withstood the crisis rather well. Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, and Serbia, with their relatively high pre-crisis growth, also experienced only a moderate decline in 2009, followed by modest growth in 2010 (Somun-Krupalija, 2011, 1; Schmidt and Vaughan-Whitehead, 2011, 1–9, 16–17; Kaser, 2019b, 99). Thus, paradoxically, the West Balkan states as well as Georgia and Armenia, chronic losers of transition, were harmed the least.

Employment and Unemployment In the early 1990s, the post-socialist societies were threatened by migration, increasing unemployment, and impoverishment. The state as an industrial employer largely vanished and disappeared almost completely as the provider of social benefits. Precarious and instable household economies had to be bridged until the arrival of better times. It has become a common claim that women were the primary losers in the initial post-socialist period. The demise of the command economy brought an end to the ideology of full employment, hitting women first. This and the shrinking of social services and benefits such as maternity leave and child allowances led to the feminisation of poverty, which should not obscure the fact that men, now the only breadwinners, were also among the losers (Štulhofer & Sandfort, 2005, 4). However, we must distinguish between the gender employment gap and the gender wage gap. Whereas in the primary sector both men and women lost jobs, in the secondary sector mostly women were made redundant – though in some countries less than the EU average. Differences are country-specific. Thus, in Serbia and Bulgaria women and men were affected, whereas in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Armenia, and Turkey, women were clearly hit harder by unemployment. In Serbia, market-oriented reforms and privatisation resulted in the shift of a large share of the labour force into the private sector, which accounted for almost 70% of total employment around 2010. As in many other countries in the region, women are somewhat more likely to work in the public than in the private sector. Jobs in state-owned institutions tend to be relatively secure and rarely require overtime, allowing women to combine employment with family responsibilities. In

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particular, women are overrepresented in health and social work, education, as well as banking, where they make up between 60% and 80% of employees in these sectors. Construction, transport, communications, energy, and mining are dominated by men (Reva, 2012, 4). During the European economic crisis between October 2008 and October 2011, all main labour market indicators worsened for both men and women. However, the decline in employment rates was less pronounced for women than for men. While male employment fell by 9.7%, female employment dropped by 6.7%; the male unemployment rate rose by 10.8%, while female unemployment rose by 8.2%. Obviously, female employment in the public sector was more resistant to the crisis (Arandarenko & Avlijaš, 2011, 127–8; Reva, 2012, 4; Avlijaš et al., 2013, 63–67). The findings for Serbia have relevance for neighbouring countries, too. In all the West Balkan states, female employment rates were significantly lower than male, but the economic crisis had a stronger impact on male than female employment. The shrinking of the employment gap may also be due to the overrepresentation of women in the public sector, where employment security has traditionally been higher. Furthermore, in the public sector the wage premium has been higher for women than for men (Avlijaš et al., 2013, 165–6, 171). In Bulgaria, unemployment also affected women more than men at the beginning of the transition period. In addition, women were less likely to find a job in the better-paid private business sector (Kaser, 2008, 192). By the end of 2001, however, Bulgarian men already constituted the majority of the registered unemployed with an unemployment rate of 20.4%, compared to 18.5% for women (Ghodsee, 2004, 35). However, in 2006 the unemployment rate of women was again slightly higher (9.3%) than that of men (8.6%) (Beleva, 2008, 9). In contrast to other former socialist countries, the gender employment gap in Bosnia and Herzegovina is the most important gender issue in respect to the labour market. After Kosovo, the country has the second highest level of female non-­ participation in the labour force in the region. Approximately 250,000 fewer women are in employment than men. Two out of three inactive persons are women, and two out of three working-age women are inactive7 (Smajic & Ermacora, 2007, 77–78; O’Higgins, 2011, 56, 60–61; USAID, 2016, 6–7; Pozarny, 2016a, 8). Many women still consider their family roles as primary responsibilities that take priority over employment and a career. More women than men work part-time in order to accommodate family obligations and, consequently, are at a greater disadvantage to men in relation to improving their career prospects (Somun-Krupalija, 2011, 2–6; USAID, 2016, 11, 49–50). The situation in the South Caucasus is significantly worse than in the Balkans, especially for women. In Armenia, for example, almost half of the population is unemployed. Economic restructuring has hit women harder than men. Like in other 7  The participation of Bosnian-Herzegovinian women in the workforce is estimated to be the lowest in Europe. In 2013–2015, the unemployment rate was 68% for women and 39.6% for men. Only 13% of Kosovar Albanian women are estimated to live on their own income. Women are economically dependent on their families (Haug, 2015, 162).

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Caucasus republics, transition in Armenia seems to have strengthened both latent and manifest patriarchal attitudes. Comparing the employment rates of women and men, it is evident that male employees outnumber female employees by about 30%. The unemployment rate for women varies between 50% and 70% and more, meaning that most women are supported by someone else. Even employed women earn too little to be able to lead an independent life (Kaser, 2008, 194; Hayruni, 2014, 45–46; Stanković, 2016, 591). Although the situation in the Caucasus is worsening, Turkey lags behind the Caucasian countries on nearly all social indicators, including female labour force participation. The vast majority of the female labour force is employed in agriculture. Generally, participation rates are very low, especially in urban areas where women represent less than one fifth of the salaried workforce (Kaser, 2008, 194). Women’s participation in employment was 56.2% in 1965 and only 31.2% in 2013 (Bürgin & Bengi Gümrükçü, 2015, 244–45). This brief overview has shown that female unemployment and labour participation rates vary significantly from country to country. It seems that less developed national economies in correlation with more intense patriarchal relations have led to less women in employment. However, this does not explain Turkey’s low female employment rate, since the country’s national economy is relatively developed. Thus, aside from economic factors, social and cultural factors must be taken into consideration to explain the low female employment rate. An even more alarming indicator in this respect is the difference between male and female incomes. Across Eurasia Minor, women are on the losing side. Whereas in ‘averagely’ patriarchal countries such as Greece, Bulgaria, and Romania, the income gap is between a third and a half, in Turkey it is almost two thirds. This difference is one of the reasons why married women tend to opt for the role of housewife (Kaser, 2008, 194). The following section takes a closer look at this problem.

Gender Wage Gap Although equality between women and men is one of the fundamental principles of the European Union, there is still a clear and definite deficit. Despite strong commitments from EU bodies and the member states, the EU is only halfway towards becoming a gender-equal society (Paliszkiewicz et al., 2015, 131). A similar situation can be assumed for the Eurasia Minor region, though we have only scarce comparative data on the gender pay gap. Based on the available data, we see that the highest wage gap between men and women in the Balkan countries is in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Albania, at around 35% (O’Higgins, 2011, 72). In North Macedonia between 2000 and 2008, men’s average net wages were 27.4% higher than those of women. In Serbia, the difference between the average hourly wages of women and men was 15–16%. Meanwhile in Bulgaria, the gender pay gap decreased from 31% to 17% between 1996 and 2006 (Schmidt & Vaughan-Whitehead, 2011, 16).

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Aside from this dispersed data, a comparative study of gender wage disparities was conducted in Serbia, North Macedonia, and Montenegro for the period 2008–2011 (Avlijaš et al. 2013, 63–67, 97–99, 135–36). Employed women in these countries were found to be better qualified, yet to earn less than men – in Serbia 11% less, in North Macedonia 17.9%, and in Montenegro 16% less. In other words, in Serbia a woman would need to work 40 additional days per year to make the same annual wages as a man with the same qualifications, in North Macedonia 65 extra days, and in Montenegro 58 extra days. Despite these gender-specific discrepancies, the gender wage gaps in the Western Balkan countries are statistically smaller in comparison to Western EU countries (ibid., 2013, 9–15). In comparison, the gender wage gap in Romania is relatively small. In recent years, occupational gender segregation has diminished as more women have been hired in trade and more men work in the service sector. As a result, the gender pay gap shrank from more than 20% in the first decade of transition to 17.4% in 2000 and 7.8% in 2008, before rising again slightly to 8.4% in 2009 (Vasile, 2011, 242–43; Massino & Popa, 2015, 175). Armenia and Azerbaijan (Agadjanian et al., 2015, 29–30) have one of the highest, if not the highest, gender employment gap and gender wage gap of Eurasia Minor. In Armenia, the average salary of female employees is more than double as low as the average salary earned by men. More than half of employed women receive a minimum salary, which is not enough to cover even minimal expenses per person. Only 15% of women earn a salary sufficient to cover living costs and minimal expenses in the household. Men are the guarantors of a family’s future well-­ being, as women with their low salaries and participation in the labour market cannot sustain even themselves, and thus need the protection and care of their parents or husbands (Hayruni, 2014, 45–46). The debate on the gender wage gap, which is comparatively low in some Balkan countries and comparatively high in the South Caucasus, should not obscure the fact that wages are very low also for men, frequently causing significant problems for the sole breadwinners of the family. The combination of low wages and high unemployment rates are some of the reasons for high shares of female and male labour migration and prostitution, which in many cases also takes the form of labour migration, though often not voluntarily.

Labour Migration Internal labour migration as well as labour migration to other countries impacts on patriarchal life and demography in various fields. Most of the Eurasia Minor countries have experienced population decrease as a result of labour migration. Labour migrants from the South Caucasus have found jobs in Russia – for instance, three million migrants from Azerbaijan in 2010, or one third of the population (van Klaveren et al., 2010, 21). Labour migrants from the Balkans have headed towards EU countries, North America, and Australia. For instance, Bulgaria’s population

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decreased by about 600,000 persons due to emigration in the early 1990s, dropping further to 700,000 towards the end of 1995 because of negative population growth – a result of a decline in the birth rate combined with increased mortality (Daskalova, 2000, 344). According to Eurostat, in 2019 around 900,000 Bulgarians lived in other EU countries while a total 2.5 million lived abroad,8 which is estimated to be around one third of the population. In the case of Moldova, as much as 40% of the population of approximately 3.6 million lives and works abroad.9 According to data from the beginning of the 2010s, one of the negative consequences of massive labour migration was that around 177,000 children in the Republic of Moldova were affected by their parents working abroad. In comparison with previous years, the number of children growing up without both parents has doubled, representing about 30% of the total number of minors (Enachi, 2014, 572–4). Whereas in the case of Moldova the proportion of women migrants was extraordinarily high, reaching 40% (Peleah, 2007, 14–16), in the case of Albania the percentage of the female population living abroad (50% in 2010) is higher than elsewhere.10 Albanians migrated especially in the 1990s  – in a spontaneous and irregular fashion – almost exclusively to Greece and Italy, the country’s closest EU neighbours. Subsequent regulations in both Greece and Italy turned these undocumented migrants into more settled immigrant populations, so that by 2010 the Albanian population had reached 600,000  in Greece and 400,000  in Italy (Charalampopoulu, 2004, 82–95; King & Vullnetari, 2012, 208, 213–17). Migration has produced an influx of remittances to the sending countries, i.e. to the families of origin. In the case of Albania, remittances have grown continually, rising from $275 million in 1993 to a peak of $1.3 billion in 2007. In the same year, remittances to the Republic of Moldova reached $1.5 billion. In both cases, remittances have contributed significantly to national GDP as well as to households and on a local level; they have been responsible for lifting families and communities out of poverty, as numerous studies have confirmed. However, they impact affirmatively on male-dominated gender relations, since remittances are overwhelmingly sent by men to men (King & Vullnetari, 2010, 1–2, 8–9, 29–30; Enachi, 2014, 572–74). Migration generally has more positive effects on men than it has on women. Female migrants generally experience lower occupational status, longer working hours, and lower earnings; migrant wives are exposed to isolation and marriageable daughters remain under the strict control of their fathers. Family fragmentation does not always result in diminished traditional patterns of authority; the egalitarian values of the destination country rarely change the traditional cultural values of  https://www.europeandatajournalism.eu/eng/News/Data-news/How-many-Bulgarians-live-inEurope-And-what-are-the-trends-in-their-mobility; https://china-cee.eu/wp-content/uploads/201 9/12/2019s1191%EF%BC%8815Bulgaria.pdf (accessed on 15 July 2020). 9  https://www.get-moldau.de/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/PB_05_2015_en.pdf (accessed on 15 July 2020) (accessed on 15 July 2020). 10  https://www.bpb.de/gesellschaft/migration/laenderprofile/160106/albania (accessed on 15 July 2020). 8

Economic, Political, and Social Transformations

37

migrants (Kaser, 2008, 240). Studies on Armenia emphasise that the new domestic tasks assumed by the wives of migrant husbands do not necessarily translate into their empowerment, since they are expected to follow strictly gendered models of behaviour. As a result, the role of men as breadwinners and primary decision-­makers is further strengthened and amplified, as is the subordinate position of women (Menjívar & Agadjanian, 2007, 1244–47, 1260–61). Thus, labour migration has undeniable gender aspects, a specific aspect of which is mostly related to young women, namely sex work.

Sex Work and Trafficking Sex work-related organisations assume that on average around 70% of prostitutes in Western Europe are migrants. Western Europe is the main destination for victims of international trafficking for sexual exploitation. The main region of origin of migrants engaged in sex work and forced into the sex trade is Central Eastern and Eastern Europe, including the Baltic and Balkan States, which together account for around 70% of arriving prostitutes. The trafficking of human beings clearly follows an economic pattern; people from poor countries and regions are trafficked to more affluent countries. Moreover, up to half of these women start to engage in prostitution when they are young, often below the age of majority, which is connected to the increasing demand for young women and child prostitutes (European Parliament, 2014, 27–29). A report published by Europol in 2011 (Fondation Scelles, 2012) regarding human trafficking in Europe identified several factors inducing the spread of this practice: unemployment or limited access to the labour market, a lack of opportunities to improve the standard of living, and poverty – among others. Country studies on Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, and Azerbaijan confirm these factors in detail. During the socialist era in Bulgaria, prostitution was punished because it was viewed as ‘social parasitism’ that was detrimental to society. The political changes of the 1990s subsequently entrenched unemployment and poverty in Bulgaria and spread a utopian image of the West, reinforcing the willingness of young Bulgarians to emigrate. Prostitution constituted one of the scarce ways to survive in the poorest areas. Tourism contributed to the flourishing of sexual exploitation as nearly 50% of clients looking for sex in entertainment establishments were foreigners (ibid., 61–63). According to estimates, over 10,000 Bulgarian women, many of them minors, worked as sex workers in Western Europe in the early twenty-first century. Young women were so eager to go abroad that they often became victims of international crime syndicates. In some cases, young women applied to ‘employment agencies’ that promised to arrange legal work in West European countries as an au pair, nanny, or nurse. In other cases, ‘talent scouts’ would approach teenage women to recruit them as ‘fashion models’ or waitresses. These ‘scouts’ arranged visas and paid for travel, while the recruited women agreed to pay back the money from their future salaries. On arrival, their money and passports were confiscated and they were

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forced to work as illegal prostitutes in order to repay their ‘debts’ (Ghodsee, 2004, 33–34; Fondation Scelles, 2012, 61–65). The situation in Romania is not very different. According to journalists, a steady stream of foreign citizens looking to buy sex visited Bucharest on a yearly basis, often luring unsuspicious Romanian teenagers and young women dreaming of a good job in the West into illegal prostitution abroad (Turcescu & Stan, 2005, 302). Bucharest remains the main convergence point for internal human trafficking, but accurate statistics are unavailable. Organisations believe that the number of female prostitutes in Romania fluctuated between 20,000 and 50,000  in 2011 (Roman, 2001, 58; Fondation Scelles, 2012, 239–40). In Muslim countries such as Turkey and Azerbaijan, governments and public authorities are usually more rigid in their stand against prostitution than in Bulgaria and Romania. However, Turkey is the only Muslim country (along with Indonesia) to regulate prostitution, which has been legal since 1923 as long as it is practised in the few licensed establishments (Fondation Scelles, 2012, 291–4). Meanwhile, Azerbaijan’s capital Baku has many illegal brothels scattered around the city and its suburbs which attract wealthy and foreign male visitors – Iranian, Turkish, and Arab businessmen. Whereas in the past prostitution was a rare activity conducted mostly by local Russian women, the proliferation of brothels has been accompanied by the emergence of street prostitution involving young, sometimes very young, Azeri women. In general, whether young women have office jobs, are studying at university or seek start-up capital for a business, they are confronted with strong pressures and tempting opportunities to offer sexual favours in order to achieve their goals (Heyat, 2006, 405). Where there is tourism there is prostitution, the display of male and female bodies, and nudity. Therefore, Muslim families in particular try to shield female family members from beach tourism. Interestingly, the percentage of women employed in tourism in Turkey is only 15%, but 56% in Montenegro and 64% in Bulgaria (2014).11 The Montenegrin coastal region between Croatia and Albania is a good example of the diverging attitudes concerning women in tourism. Montenegrins make up the majority population on the northern and central coast, but in the southern Ulcinj Municipality, Albanians (72%) prevail. If we compare the two Montenegrin coastal counties of Budva (Serb/Montenegrin Orthodox) and Ulcinj, in Budva county, 49% of employed women work in tourism, whereas in Ulcinj, women make up only 28% of tourism workers (Devedzic, 2002, 144–51). An earlier survey conducted in 1997–1998 investigated women’s work in tourism in the Cappadocia region of central Turkey. Sex segregation was strong, with women confined to certain activities and to physically and morally ‘appropriate’ positions. Thus, female employees were kept shielded from tourists, and waitresses were not recruited from the local population but among students from other regions (Elmas, 2007, 302–12).

11

 https://www.e-unwto.org/doi/pdf/10.18111/9789284420384 (accessed on 15 July 2020).

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In comparison to Turkey, where families are anxious to maintain sexual control over young family members, in neighbouring Bulgaria the tourism sector has been, and still is, dominated by women. Women working in tourism have higher levels of education, experience in working with Western visitors, and foreign-language training. Tourism jobs are considered desirable, as is evidenced by the high percentage of women employed in tourism mentioned above (Ghodsee, 2005, 4–5, 56–57, 71). In concluding this section, it should be emphasised that post-socialist economic transformation unfolded unevenly across Europe and Eurasia Minor. Transition was successfully completed by those states already industrialised before socialism, such as the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Slovenia. The states of Eurasia Minor entered socialism as agrarian countries. After socialism, they did not go back to being agrarian economies, but can no longer be considered industrialised either. As a result of the closure of state-run industries, the reduced labour market forced a significant share of the young population to look for labour opportunities abroad, where male job-seekers were in a better position than (young) women looking for work. The latter have been partially pushed into sex work, which provides a higher income than, for example, jobs available in the care sector. With regard to domestic labour markets, women in the Muslim countries are generally less active in seeking employment (whether in tourism or the broader economy) compared to men, who have increasingly become the sole breadwinners in their families – a role that many cannot fulfil. Especially in lower income and less educated social groups, young Muslim women choose, or are pushed, to retreat to the home instead of participating in the labour market. After decades of enforced equality, the economic and political transition caused a rapid growth in gender inequality, which appeared to expand without limits. At a certain point, governments felt obliged to set legal frameworks. This needs a closer investigation.

Legal Issues of Gender and LGBTIQ Equality Legal impulses for the fundamental modernisation of traditionally conceptualised heterosexual gender relations arrived late in Eurasia Minor – in some aspects earlier, in others later. The socialist concept of ‘co-residence’ emphasised secular family arrangements under the umbrella of the formal equality of men and women, husbands and wives. Same-sex relationships were not included in this concept. Religion was to lose any influence on marital life, and the female and the male worker, freed from all obstructive religious and cultural traditions, were constructed as new social ideals. The waning of government-run social institutions immediately after the fall of socialism created a vast gap that surviving traditional institutions, such as the family, had to fill in the absence of alternative, well-developed public services. Thus, the patriarchal family as a solidarity and networking mechanism became the most reliable form of social insurance against political, social, and economic risks (Guilmoto,

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2013, 30). In the post-socialist states, men and women tended towards conservative social arrangements that found significant support among the leading political, religious, and cultural elites. Conservative social arrangements included comparatively high rates of marriage, low divorce rates, a low number of extra-marital births, few single parents, low rates of extra-marital cohabitation, a preference for sons, and the discrimination of same-sex relations – all indicators connected with male-­dominated family formations. The temporary patriarchal backlash was facilitated by the partial withdrawal of the state as an industrial employer and from many of its traditional domains in the fields of public health and social security. After a while, most of the post-socialist countries started to pass new laws aiming to ensure the legal equality of men and women, though not of all citizens, as people in same-sex relationships were still discriminated or even criminalised, even in EU-member states such as Bulgaria and Romania. In some cases, gender equality legislation was imposed by external forces such as international organisations, or adjusted in order to make countries fit for EU accession. Legislation per se does not change gender relations, but it constituted an important factor in halting the process of repatriarchisation and reversing its direction. Meanwhile, formal legal equality has been established across Eurasia Minor. However, implementation is difficult because of a lack of executive instruments, and the power of customary (patriarchal) traditions. In the case of Azerbaijan, for instance, equality in connection with formal ownership rights is ensured by law; both spouses have the same rights of ownership and tenure with respect to joint property, whether the property was acquired by the husband or wife. Nonetheless, NGOs claim that women are expected to operate primarily within a family. Single women are widely perceived as a failure once they have passed the ‘marriageable age’ of 21–23  years. The prevailing concept of ‘family honour’ limits women’s mobility, placing them in a vulnerable position if they have sex before marriage or decide to live independently from a father or husband. In order to protect the ‘family honour’, families often limit their daughters’ access to higher education by not allowing them to enrol in universities in other cities (van Klaveren et al., 2010, 10). Neighbouring Armenia has also established legal gender equality, outlaws all forms of discrimination on the basis of gender, and adopted the Law on Equal Rights and Equal Opportunities for Men and Women in 2013 (Silova, 2016). Like many other states, the Armenian government has taken several steps to comply with international gender equality standards, adopted some international conventions regarding women’s rights (YSU Center for Gender and Leadership Studies, 2014, 6), and integrated principles of gender equality into the education system. In 2010, a gender policy concept paper suggested the formulation of an egalitarian notion of gender relations and the integration of gender education into curricula as a mandatory subject at all levels of education. However, most of the school curricula and textbooks were developed and published before these policy commitments were made, and therefore did not undergo gender analysis during or upon their production (Silova, 2016). Georgia has led the South Caucasus countries in terms of adopting a national action plan incorporating principles of women’s participation in political

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decision-­making, peace-building, and security. It also considers women’s needs concerning conflict prevention and protection in conflict and post-conflict situations, including protection from sexual violence (Pozarny, 2016b, 19–20). The country can refer to an impressive list of signed conventions and installed genderequality councils (Pozarny, 2016b, 19–20; Chkheidze, 2018, 85–87). Despite these policies and legislation, awareness of rights remains limited in Georgia as well as in the other South Caucasus countries. Women’s reporting of discrimination and violence to judicial entities is low, and the general implementation of laws and policies is weak. Deeply entrenched gender stereotypes create barriers to achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment (ibid.). Due to the EU accession process, Bulgaria and Romania established effective gender equality legislation and national plans years ahead of the South Caucasus states (Stoilova, 2015, 199). The achievements of Western feminism became a public good in legal form even before demand was publicly recognised (Miroiu, 2010, 215–16). For example, in the 5 years between 1998 and 2003, Romania adopted the Law on Parental Leave (1998), the Law for Preventing and Combating All Forms of Discrimination (2000), and the Law on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men (2002). Even the constitution of 2003 recognised equal opportunities for men and women (Miroiu, 2004, 216–17). Non-EU member states have not been so fast in installing top-down legislation. Meanwhile, countries such as the Republic of Moldova guarantee equal rights to women and men and have ratified a series of pertinent conventions, except the Istanbul Convention concerning violence against women. The implementation of already adopted laws and policies is lagging behind, largely due to deep-seated patriarchal norms, resistance to change, budgetary constraints, and a lack of awareness of the laws among parliamentarians, judges, and others in the judicial sector (Pozarny, 2016c). In Serbia, the constitution (2006), the Law on Gender Equality, and the Law on Prohibition of Discrimination (2009) confirmed equality for men and women, including property ownership and inheritance rights (Drezgić, 2010, 965–66; Duhaček, 2015, 119; Rohwerder, 2016, 43–44). However, in rural areas women are still sometimes expected to waive their inheritance rights in favour of male members of the family. In addition, some women do not have de facto access to land because if women buy or inherit a plot, tradition obliges them to register it in the name of their husband or another close male relative (Rohwerder, 2016, 43–44). In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the parliamentary assembly passed a gender equality law already in 2003 (revised in 2010), which prohibits discrimination on the grounds of gender and sexual orientation and promotes the equal participation of women in areas where they are considered less advantaged than men. The Gender Action Plan for Bosnia and Herzegovina, which arose from this law, was established in 2006 and outlines a series of actions deemed necessary to facilitate greater gender equality in all major areas. Three of 15 chapters are directly concerned with employment issues (Somun-Krupalija, 2011, 9–10; Agency for Statistics of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2015, 9; USAID, 2016, 10).

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Progress in legislation, however, does not automatically produce more gender equality. Instead of seeing an improvement in their status, women in Bosnia and Herzegovina are forced to continuously defend their rights in the context of prevailing conservative and patriarchal norms. Another problem with implementation is the low level of knowledge about the Law on Gender Equality. Despite the well-­ developed legislative framework, the awareness of citizens regarding gender equality, like in the neighbouring countries and the South Caucasus, remains very low (Simić, 2015, 91–99). A similar situation can be observed in Kosovo. Following the 1999 war and the establishment of United Nations control over Kosovo, several institutional mechanisms and legal instruments were established that aimed at promoting gender equality and integrating gender perspectives into the development policies of institutions. Laws and regulations provide far-reaching gender equality in crucial social spheres. However, their implementation in many cases is slow. For instance, the implementation of the law on equal access to property and inheritance was still fraught with problems in 2015 (Haug, 2015, 155–62). Although many women are aware of their rights, in practice they rarely claim inherited property and are persuaded to forgo it by husbands and their families. Thus, there is a gap between the legal framework that ensures equal property rights and how these function in practice. Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo are relevant examples of countries for whom EU membership is still a distant option, and where gender equality legislation imposed by the international civil and military presence is far from being implemented. The weak implementation dynamic is also typical for other countries of Eurasia Minor. However, as long as people are perceived through a heterosexual lens, things are relatively simple – when it comes to LGBTIQ legislation, the legislative machinery comes to a standstill. Public opinion in the Western Balkans as well as the South Caucasus still strictly opposes the endorsement of sexual permissiveness. This could partly stem from socialist legislation that treated same-sex relations as a sickness that must be cured. The idea of manhood in most patriarchal societies is connected with heterosexual men, while homosexuals are not seen as ‘real men’ but as anti-males with feminised personalities. In comparison to EU countries, people in Eurasia Minor are less tolerant of sexual permissiveness. The majority consider sexual contact between two consenting male adults of the same sex as unacceptable. Data published in the World Values Survey confirms two distinct patterns: Slovenia, Croatia, the Baltic states, Belorussia, and the Ukraine accept the idea of unlimited sexual freedom; the Eurasia Minor countries throughout are inclined towards social restriction (Kaser, 2008, 228). Daniel Tudora and collaborators established a gay equality index for the Balkan countries and concluded that there is almost no other European region where people with non-straight orientations are more obviously discriminated than in most of Eurasia Minor, and especially Albania and North Macedonia (Tudora et al., 2015, 659–60, 663). Recent reports dating from 2015 on the perception of LGBTIQ people among respondents in the Western Balkans reveals both widely held misconceptions about LGBTIQ persons and deep-seated prejudices on the part of the majority population.

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Fifty seven percent of those polled believed that same-sex relations were not normal, and 22% held the opinion that gays were ‘no better than criminals and should be severely punished’. Fifty nine percent believed that homosexuality was a disease, and in a ‘normal family a child cannot become homosexual’. The latter opinion underscores the level of social stigma attached to families with a LGBTIQ member. Only 8% would be willing to completely support their LGBTIQ child and 44% would accept the child but try to find a cure for the illness (USAID, 2016, 95–96). In the socialist era, negative opinions on LGBTIQ were backed by legislation. Albania punished same-sex intercourse with long-term prison sentences of up to 10 years, and Romania up to 5 years. In the Soviet Union, male same-sex relations were punishable by up to 5 years in prison, while lesbian relations were disregarded. In the southern republics of Yugoslavia, same-sex relations remained criminalised until the collapse of the federation. Bosnia and Herzegovina decriminalised same-­ sex sexual activity in 1991, and Serbia only in 1994. This enabled the founding of the first LGBTIQ NGOs in Serbia, Arcadia (1994) and Labris (1995). Their role, however, was marginalised due to the wars and general militarisation of society. In 2009, the first anti-discrimination law was passed with the support of the EU despite the protests of the Orthodox Church and far-right organisations (Duhaček, 2015, 112–15). Rainbow Europe, an NGO funded by the European Union, ranks all 49 European countries on a scale between zero (gross violations of human rights, discrimination) and 100 (respect of human rights, full equality). The ranking is conducted on the basis of laws and policies that have a direct impact on LGBTIQ rights.12 A map and a percentage index based on these categories and created in 2020 show a clear European northwest-southeast divide, with Belgium (73%), Norway (68%), the UK (66%), and France (56%) as positive front runners. If we take results between 50% and 20% as mean values, all the Eurasia Minor countries except Montenegro (62%) were in this field or below (Romania and Moldova at 19% and Bulgaria at 20% barely reached the 20% threshold). Turkey (4%), Armenia (8%), and Azerbaijan (2%) were situated clearly below the threshold and together with Belarus (13%) and Russia (10%) comprised the bottom of the European scale. Just to give two examples for midfielders in the mentioned scale, Serbia – with its legislation introduced above  – ranked 26th (score 33%) and Bosnia and Herzegovina ranked 22nd (score 37%) out of the 49 countries in 2018.13 The latter country has made important progress in protecting the rights of its citizens, including of LGBTIQ persons. However, some laws remain vague and are not adequately harmonised with entity-level legislation. While the constitution prohibits the discrimination of certain social groups, the categories of sexual orientation and gender identity are not explicitly listed. No legal provisions exist for cohabitation rights, civil partnership, same-sex marriage, and the adoption of children by same-sex partners. Only the 2009 Law on Prohibition of Discrimination includes the term ‘sexual

12 13

 ilgaeurope-rainbowmap-2020-interactive.pdf (ilga-europe.org) (accessed on 15 July 2020).  Country Ranking | Rainbow Europe (rainbow-europe.org) (accessed on 15 July 2020).

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expression and/or orientation’ in all aspects of public life. Additionally, the law makes a clear distinction between sex and gender. However, sexual orientation has remained undefined and the law does not explicitly include gender identity (USAID 2016, 96–97). Our comparative synopsis shows similar trends in the Eurasia Minor countries with legislation aimed at eradicating discrimination of all kinds. However, when it comes to the equality of women and LGBTIQ people, the legislative bodies are faced with serious opposition from a male-dominated public, religious institutions, conservative parties, and right-wing movements, which all refer to traditional family values. Especially these deep-rooted family values that emphasise traditional gender roles have become a serious obstacle for women wanting to enter the public sphere.

Women in Politics The massive intolerance of LGBTIQ persons in the Eurasia Minor countries has been manifest most directly in violent reactions to public demonstrations in support of same-sex relations. This is one of the reasons why gay pride parades could not be held in the region’s capitals until recently. Public space was conceptualised exclusively as a space dominated by heterosexual men. This was the case in the 1990s when in many countries same-sex relations were illegal and women almost completely disappeared from relevant public forums such as political parties and national parliaments. However, today female members of parliament are undisputed and women’s organisations at least not rejected by society per se, whereas LGBTIQ organisations and their representatives in parliament are still taboo.

Women in Parliaments Women almost disappeared from the political scene in the post-socialist states in the 1990s; in Greece, and especially in Turkey, they had practically never appeared in relevant numbers until then. In Albania, the gap in the inclusion of men and women in political life grew so wide that in the first two post-socialist decades it could be characterised as a country in which men and women lived completely separate lives in terms of the public and private spheres. With the establishment of a multiparty system, Albanian women lost their quota of one third of the seats in the national assembly. Women were gravely under-represented in public administration. In the elections of 1992, only three of 140 members of the Albanian parliament were women; in 1993, six women were elected, and in 1997 seven out of 155 members. In the four governments in power between the March 1991 elections and 1997, not one woman held a portfolio or any high-ranking position in a government body. This changed in 2005, when the then acting prime minister, Fatos Nano, appointed

Women in Politics

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two women to his cabinet of 19 ministers (Kaser, 2008, 219). After the elections of 2009, the share of female members of parliament increased to 16.4% (Musaj et al., 2012, 47). In Romania, in the first free elections held in May 1990, only one woman was elected to a senate seat of a total 117, and 13 of 383 seats in the chamber of deputies went to women. In 1992, there were 16 female deputies and four female senators (Baban, 1999, 216). In contrast to the Ceausescu years, very few women played a prominent political role after 1989. In explaining this widespread reaction against women’s participation in top politics in the early post-socialist years, Romanian women themselves pointed to several factors during discussions in 1992. First, they argued that the low involvement of women was a natural response to their previous coerced and manipulated involvement. Most women were no longer interested in engaging in politics and were seeking peace and quiet and the right to stay at home. Second, they invariably mentioned general revulsion against Elena Ceausescu, the highly positioned wife of the dictator; they also criticised the corrupt and hypocritical nature of women’s organisations in socialism. Finally, most women wished to spend their extra energy on their families and on the new economic challenges facing households during transition (Fischer, 1998, 179–89). One decade later, after the elections of 2012 resulting in an 11.2% share of female members of parliament, Romania ranked second lowest in the EU with respect to women’s political representation, and well below the EU average of 27%. Of the 22 cabinet ministers, only three were women (Massino & Popa, 2015, 173; Pop, 2016). In post-socialist Yugoslavia, women also disappeared from formal political institutions; the socialist institution of quotas for women was abandoned. Political actors repeatedly ignored women and their needs, being occupied with solving ‘major’ national problems. Nationalistic, aggressive political performances and the macho stance of leading political actors were not attractive models for women. After the first free elections in 1990, the percentage of women parliamentarians was 13% in Slovenia, 4.5% in Croatia, 4% in Montenegro, 3.3% in North Macedonia, 2.9% in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and 1.6% in Serbia (Kapor-Stanulovic & David, 1999, 310). In Bosnia and Herzegovina, to cite one example, the 2.9% share corresponded to seven out of 230 seats in the parliamentary assembly (Spahić Šiljak, 2010, 160–63). In Bulgaria, the main explanation for women’s exclusion from the political arena is seen in the strong consolidation of the family in the difficult years of social and economic changes, when women devoted more energy to family affairs than to political issues. Most women had no choice but to concentrate on shielding their families from the negative consequences of transition. In 1990, 8.5%, in 1997, 11.2%, and in 2000, 10.4% of members of parliament and 3 of 16 ministers were women (almost 20%)  – a comparatively high proportion for the region (Kaser, 2008, 219). In Turkey, only 4.4% of members of parliament in 2000 were women (compared to 4.6% in 1935). Only eight women had ever been members of a government in the period 1935–2000. The percentage of women parliamentarians increased to 9.1% in

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2007, 14.4% in 2011, and 18% in 2015. While 36% of university instructors, 31% of architects, and more than 50% of dentists are women, they seem to be obstructed from holding administrative positions in the public sphere (Kaser, 2008, 220; Eray, 2015, 995–96). In Georgia, less than 7% of the 250 members of parliament in 1995 were women, corresponding to 16 female representatives. In 1999, they were still at 7% (17 women of 235 members); in subsequent years, 10% of parliamentarians were women. After 2008, the number of parliamentary seats was reduced to 150. In the 4 years from 2008 to 2011, women made up only 6% of parliamentarians. In 2012, this percentage nearly doubled when 18 women appeared in the Georgian parliament. But despite the upward trend, men continue to be disproportionately represented (Chkheidze, 2018, 79). As of December 2014, three of 19 cabinet ministers (16%) and 15% of deputy ministers were women (Sumbadze, 2018, 175). In Armenia, women are vastly under-represented in decision-making and policy development. In 2013, women comprised only 11% of all ministers and deputy ministers; 14% of top public servants and 10.7% of members of the national parliament were women. Only 5% of all ambassadors were women. A survey conducted in autumn 2013 on women’s political participation identified several obstacles for women’s active involvement in politics, including: (1) the image of women in politics as ‘too ambitious and masculine’ and ‘not satisfied in family/personal life’; (2) strict expectations in terms of men’s and women’s roles and gender stereotypes according to which ‘politics is not for women’; (3) a lack of economic independence; (4) family responsibilities and the inability to balance work and family due to the overwhelming duties of women in the household; (5) lack of social capital; (6) women’s underestimation of their capacities and low self-esteem; and, finally, (7) the overall political culture in Armenia that is not favourable to women (YSU Centre for Gender and Leadership Studies, 2014, 2). Nonetheless, a trend towards the increased representation of women in national parliaments is evident in almost every country in the region. Today (2020), their share is between 20% and 40% – a figure that corresponds to most European countries.14 Negative exceptions are Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey (between 15% and 17%). In a worldwide comparison (1 February 2019) of 192 countries, the Eurasia Minor countries ranked not so badly, ranging between positions 138 (Georgia), 123 (Azerbaijan), and 119 (Turkey), all with a share of between 15% and 17% of female representatives, and 66 (Bulgaria), 53 (Albania), and 25 (Serbia) – between 26% and 38%. This means that the bulk of countries is in the world’s middle field.15 If we compare these figures with the percentage of female representatives in the European Parliament, only Serbia would rank slightly above the lower placed third of member countries.16  https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/sdg_05_50/default/table?lang=en (accessed on 15 July 2020). 15  http://archive.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm (accessed on 15 July 2020). 16  https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2020/646189/EPRS_ATA(2020) 646189_EN.pdf (accessed on 15 July 2020). 14

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This overview shows that women almost disappeared from parliaments, governments, and political parties in the 1990s but gradually started to return to the public arena. Interestingly, the Western Balkan states started to introduce female quotas for parliamentary elections and lower-level polls in the 2000s; now, political parties must present a minimum number of female candidates. Bosnia and Herzegovina introduced a female quota of 40%; Serbia, Albania, Kosovo, and North Macedonia have a quota of 30%. To the great surprise of many, Serbia’s president appointed independent politician and self-declared lesbian Ana Brnabić as prime minister in 2017. There was similar astonishment in Albania when the prime minister, Edi Rama, consecutively appointed two women as ministers of defence: Mimi Kodheli (2013) and Olta Xhaçka (2017). Still, it should be underlined that while it is crucial that women hold leading political positions, this does not say very much about the general status of women in society.

Counter Force: Organised Women Most women’s and feminist movements in the region lost their connections to their western counterparts around the middle of the twentieth century, making it difficult or even impossible to depict them in an international context of mainstream movements. One way for women to bridge this interruption and hence lack of a domestic feminist tradition was to borrow from Western feminist thought. This has been, however, extremely problematic because it is largely considered an undesirable ideological import not rooted in the respective countries. In Eurasia Minor, autonomous women’s organisations had a short life. Their history goes back to the years around 1900. These movements, later called ‘first-wave feminism’ by feminist historians, were synchronous with the international women’s movement (Iancu et al., 2012, 200). In Turkey, their activities were abruptly stopped after the introduction of women’s suffrage by Atatürk’s government in 1935. In the other countries, they were halted after the establishment of the socialist regimes, either shortly after the First World War (South Caucasus) or following the Second World War (Balkans). As a result, women’s organisations were dependent on the dominant party and kept from developing an effective profile. In Albania, for instance, the first women’s mass organisation, the Antifascist Women’s Union, was founded in 1943 as one of the branches of the communist party and in 1946 transformed into the Women’s Union of Albania. It was only marginally successful and was dissolved after the introduction of the multiparty system in 1992. The Bulgarian National Women’s Union, founded in 1945, was also an auxiliary of the communist party and served primarily to promote its official doctrines. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, its ideology had shifted to a conservative perspective emphasising women’s return to their ‘authentic nature’ by prioritising their households and families (Kaser, 2008, 232). Therefore, most of the region’s countries missed out on second-wave feminism which flourished roughly from the late 1960s and through the 1970s. Policy changes

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in Western countries provided more equal opportunities for women in the workforce and in higher education; abortion bans were abolished and a series of gender equality laws enacted in the 1970s. However, the wide-ranging and deep adjustments to cultural formations and gender scripts which they enabled required significant time to make an impact. There is much evidence that Western societies remained characterised by patriarchal dominance. But gradually the work of second-wave feminists notably and significantly changed these societies, in particular by opening many public spaces to women and adjusting prevailing notions of their roles (Lotz, 2014, 24–25). After the breakdown of state socialism and the ensuing turbulent years, it took a while before women in Eurasia Minor were able to focus their divergent approaches on the most urgent issues. Women’s initiatives caused considerable irritation not only in male but also in female segments of society because they blurred the hegemonic image of marriage as a couple consisting of a male breadwinner and a wife as mother and homemaker (Iancu et al., 2012). Except for the countries of the former Yugoslavia, in the emerging post-socialist states the aims and methods of Western feminist movements were unknown. In the case of Romania, the first contacts with Western feminism took place in 1990 and 1991 in the framework of various seminars and visits by activists from the United States and Western Europe. The subsequent European integration process resulted in a new brand of feminism known as ‘room service political feminism’, i.e. the imposition of gender-sensitive legislation by international political authorities, in particular European ones. Even when laws on gender equality were voted in, this ‘costless state feminism’ had little if any effect on state budgets and public opinion (Iancu et al., 2012, 187–89; Miroiu, 2004, 215–16). Meanwhile, general conditions allowing women to raise their voices, though not necessarily feminist voices, have improved in the Balkan countries. In Turkey, alongside the emergence of the Islamic movement and its women’s organisations in the 1980s, an autonomous feminist movement critical of the Turkish version of modernity and nationalism entered the picture. These new ‘radical feminists’ distanced themselves from women who considered themselves Kemalist feminists and identified with the nation-state. They took up issues such as domestic violence, sexual harassment, and rape, and explicitly challenged expectations of women as modest, chaste, and virtuous. In a meanwhile legendary march held in May 1987 to protest against domestic violence, about 2500 women walked the streets of Istanbul shouting: ‘Enough! It is our turn to speak’ and ‘Our bodies belong to us’ (ibid., 235). In the wider context of Turkey, two important developments should not be ignored. The first is the emergence of Islamic feminism in the whole Middle East as well as in Europe and North America from around 2000. In France and Belgium, the movement Présence musulmane (Muslim Presence) has challenged the French bans on the veil and claims the right to veil as a matter of personal choice rather than a religious obligation. Islamic feminism derives its understanding from the Qur’an and pursues gender equality in the state, civil institutions, and everyday life. Islamic feminists emphasise that the deterioration of women’s rights in many Islamic countries is due their patriarchal and not their Islamic nature, and that the intention of the

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Qur’an was precisely to raise the status of women in society. However, there is remarkable disagreement between women activists regarding their strategies. Most Muslim women may reject the feminist label as Western and neoimperialist, while some Western feminists may reject the possibility of women fighting patriarchy within an Islamic framework. Others add that there is a need for an intersectional approach to the agency of veiled Muslim women that moves beyond subordination to men versus resistance to Western hegemony. Again others argue that there is no line between East and West with respect to Islamic feminism as it is an inter-Islamic phenomenon developed by Muslims throughout the world, which promotes both gender equality and social justice in the East and more pluralistic societies in the West with equal rights for all of whatever ethnicity, religion, or gender (Badran, 2011, 149; Seedat, 2013; Dunand Zimmerman, 2015). The second remarkable aspect is that secular feminists and Islamists have not clashed in Turkey to the extent they have in other countries. The main reason is that around the turn of the twenty-first century, the interests of the state and feminists coincided. The 2001 revisions of the secular Turkish Civil Code, among others, cast husband and wife as equal heads of the family. Women’s rights were enforced and discrimination on the basis of gender eliminated. These legislative reforms resulted from the campaigns of women’s organisations based on consensus and alliances among feminists, including Kemalists, Islamists, and Kurdish nationalists. In the meantime, however, contemporary women activists have risen up in opposition to signs of a decline in women’s rights, claiming that equality is backsliding. Still, they do not see the growth of political Islam as the sole source of deterioration, but name one factor as its major origin. In the eyes of feminists, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his government have generated this shift. By instrumentalising and appealing to the previously disenfranchised conservative population, it has become possible to cut back women’s rights. This has been achieved partly by bowing to political Islam, but is likewise attributable to Erdoğan’s rhetoric and the family-­ oriented politics of his Justice and Development Party (AKP) (Durakbaşa, 2019). Whereas women in Turkey are fighting against the curtailment of previously achieved women’s rights, in the South Caucasus civil society groups lobbying for equality emerged on the horizon after 2000, and the number of informal and non-­ governmental women’s organisations is on the rise. Although some of them are just looking on, many actively purse social justice goals in various spheres. Of these, a small number of NGOs focuses on women’s issues and women’s rights, and others on peacebuilding and conflict resolution or transformation. The number of organisations that combine the two – women’s rights and peace/conflict issues – are even smaller, though crucial for both the women’s movement as well as the establishment of sustainable peace in the region (Abrahamyan et al., 2018, 47). Probably the most challenging country in terms of women’s issues in the South Caucasus is Azerbaijan. One of the main associations that women are loosely organised around is the Azerbaijan Gender Information Centre (AGIC).17 Founded in the

17

 https://www.gender-az.org/index_en.shtml (accessed on 15 July 2020).

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beginning of 2002 with the support of the Azerbaijan branch of George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, this is the first information and documentation centre to serve the women’s movement in the South Caucasus. The centre enjoys close collaboration and cooperation with the Azerbaijani government, especially through a number of administrative and bureaucratic bodies involved with gender-related issues in the country; it also benefits from the support of its global partners such as the World Bank and the USAID-funded Eurasia Foundation (Mehrabov, 2016, 8). Feminist organisations that more directly engage with social issues are also active in Azerbaijan. The most prominent of them is perhaps the YUVA Centre, a nongovernmental and non-profit organisation based in Baku.18 Since 1997, its aim has been to provide support to women, children, and youth in building civil society. YUVA established the country’s first feminist circle, the Azerbaijan Feminist Group. It publishes Femina, a feminist monthly digest that addresses women’s issues in the country and around the world, with the ambition of familiarising Azerbaijani women with feminist ideas, debates, and movements in other countries, as well as providing access to information published by similar groups (Mehrabov, 2016, 8). In an authoritarian and patriarchal environment like Azerbaijan, it is extremely difficult to organise rallies calling attention to women’s issues and to involve more women than men in such action. For this reason, liberal Azerbaijani activists, highly educated and comfortable with Western values, started to organise flash mobs in Baku. Summoned through social media, they gathered to perform seemingly spontaneous actions lasting only a few minutes, and then dispersed just as quickly. One of the very first flash mobs took place in 2009, when small groups of young people dressed in black appeared on the streets of Baku (ibid., 9–12). Given the multiple difficulties women’s organisations are faced with, it must be incredible for Azerbaijani feminists to hear and read about the agenda of third-wave feminism and the postfeminist and neoliberal approaches in Western countries, especially in the Anglo-American space, to speculate about how feminism impacts on bodily self-expression, and to consider that some women choose a highly sexualised lifestyle (Gerodetti & McNaught-Davis, 2017, 353–54). Seen through a feminist lens, the Western and the South Caucasus countries seem worlds apart. In a historical perspective, however, we can conclude that the distance between them was even greater in the 1990s. Most of the data collected for this overview indicates that the gap between these two worlds is slowly narrowing. This closing rift is neither without contradictions nor teleological. In sum, the 1990s and 2000s were marked by the significant rearrangement of social, economic, political, cultural, gender, and generational relations. This was obvious in the post-socialist countries experiencing transition; in the case of Turkey, it was the renaissance of Islam and the emergence of the AKP as an integral and conservative Islamic political power that caused a shift in the political and religious culture of the country. Aside from the diverse histories and current specifics of each of the 15 Eurasia Minor countries, they share one essential characteristic: under the

18

 https://yuvacenter.wordpress.com/about/ (accessed on 15 July 2020).

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banner of a neoliberal market economy, the state has been abandoned as the institutional provider of social security. This concerns, for instance, social benefits, the provision of functioning infrastructure in the form of affordable kindergartens and nursing homes, and cheap and comprehensive treatment in hospitals. Many of these services have been privatised and commodified. Relatives, families, social and religious networks, and, in fewer cases, independent individuals, have had to take over services previously delivered by the state. The tax revenues of these traditionally poor states remain meagre, thus severely limiting public budgets. Expenditure on social services is too low and, in some cases, the cost of corruption too high for states to be able to guarantee a standard of living that exceeds the minimum and to keep the majority of the population just above the poverty line. Gender and generational relations, ideas of manhood and womanhood, and visualisations of femininities and masculinities developed in the conditions of a neoliberal market economy in the 1990s and 2000s. These were quite wild in the 1990s and were gradually tamed in the 2000s. The 1990s framework allowed for unconventional individual experiments as well as opened the door for the re-establishment of traditional gender arrangements. Practical problems resulted in pragmatic solutions. Who would take care of children and the elderly when public care disappeared as a practicable alternative to the customary duties of wives, daughters, and granddaughters? The breadwinner-housewife model in all its variants seemed best suited in such cases. Nevertheless, the data presented in this chapter indicates that the overall situation in the region is neither static nor only depressing. Since the beginning of the twenty-­ first century, some progress has been made. The wars of the 1990s and early 2000s seem to be over – except the still explosive Nagorno-Karabakh conflict – and while the peace arrangements may not be perfect, they are much better than a state of war. Liberal parliamentary democracy seems generally established and stable in most of the Eurasia Minor countries, economic productivity significantly exceeds 1989–1991 levels, legislation guarantees gender equality though practice diverges from legal provisions, some countries have issued equal rights protection for LGBTIQ citizens, and women are slowly but steadily recapturing a share of the public sphere. With the probable exception of Turkey, the revival of religion has already exceeded its peak. My most crucial thesis is that ‘patriarchy after patriarchy’ was only a temporary phenomenon  – one that provided a kind of questionable stability during a short historical period when economic uncertainty, political instability, loss of savings, and pessimistic forecasts prevailed. It seems that the worst has been overcome; yet retraditionalisation is unlikely to be replaced by a gender paradise. The question of what comes next is relevant. It is relatively easy to introduce legal changes but an extremely challenging endeavour to change people’s deep-rooted behaviours and images of ideal femininities and masculinities. To get a picture in accordance with reality we must look now at the realia of practised gender relations.

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Spahić-Šiljak, Z. (2014). Nation, religion, and gender. In G.  Ognjenović & J.  Jozelić (Eds.), Politization of religion, the power of symbolism. The case of former Yugoslavia and its successor states (pp. 185–210). Palgrave Macmillan. Stan, L. (2010). Eastern orthodox views on sexuality and the body. Women’s Studies International Forum, 33, 38–46. Stan, L., & Vancea, D. (2013). Secularism in Eastern Europe. In R. Ghosh (Ed.), Making sense of the secular. Critical perspectives from Europe to Asia (pp. 85–98). Routledge. Stanković, S. (2016). The transformation of the Serbian labour market from a gender perspective. Economic Themes, 54(4), 587–604. Stoilova, M. (2015). Mind the gap: The changing face of gender (in)equality in Bulgaria after 1989. In C. M. Hassenstab & S. P. Ramet (Eds.), Gender (in)equality and gender politics in Southeastern Europe: A question of justice (pp. 192–212). Palgrave Macmillan. Štulhofer, A., & Sandfort, T. (2005). Introduction: Sexuality and gender in times of transition. In A. Štulhofer & T. Sandfort (Eds.), Sexuality and gender in Postcommunist Eastern Europe and Russia (pp. 1–25). The Haworth Press. Sumbadze, N. (2018). Gender equality. Still a disputed value in Georgian society. In M. Barkaia & A. Waterston (Eds.), Gender in Georgia. Feminist perspectives on culture, nation, and history in the South Caucasus (pp. 172–180). Berghahn. Tudora, D., Banica, A., & Istrate, M. (2015). Evaluation of gender disparities from the Balkan countries. Procedia Economics and Finance, 20, 654–664. Turcescu, L., & Stan, L. (2005). Religion, politics and sexuality in Romania. Europe-Asia Studies, 57(2), 291–310. USAID. (2016). Gender analysis report for Bosnia and Herzegovina. Retrieved from http://measurebih.com/uimages/Edited20GA20Report20MEASURE-­BiH.pdf Van Klaveren, M., et al. (2010). An overview of women’s work and employment in Azerbaijan. University of Amsterdam. Vasile, V. (2011). Romania: Restrictive wage policies alongside poor crisis management. In V. Schmidt & D. Vaughan-Whitehead (Eds.), The impact of the crisis on wages in South-East Europe (pp. 221–253). International Labour Organization. YSU Center for Gender and Leadership Studies. (2014). Gender attitudes of Yerevan State University students. Retrieved from http://www.ysu.am/files/CGLS%20Survey%20-­%20 Gender%20Attitudes%20of%20Yerevan%20State%20University%20Students.pdf

Chapter 3

Patriarchies, Femininities and Masculinities

Abstract  In the former socialist countries, a painful ideological and economic transition from socialist state economies to liberal multi-party systems and a free market economy began in 1989–1991. In the course of this process, the re-­emergence of religion and other conservative ideologies went hand in hand with the temporary retraditionalisation of gender relations and of femininities and masculinities. This chapter analyses some important components of retraditionalisation that have evolved over the past quarter of a century. The first part sketches patriarchal landscapes by drawing on qualitative and quantitative comparisons of gender relations within the region and on a global scale. This will be followed by the examination of dominant gender ideologies, discourses, and stereotypical femininities and masculinities in the second section. In this context, new and alarming developments have come into being, such as gender-biased abortion in some regions. Such occurrences, as well as the generally very precarious relationship between the heterosexual mainstream and lesbian, gay, and transgender members of society, can be interpreted as a consequence of vigorous patriarchal gender ideologies. The regulation of ties between generations, marriage and marriage procedures, and gender relations have always been reflections of societies as a whole. In premodern times, cohesion between generations made sure that the elderly would survive as soon as they could no longer sustain a livelihood; accordingly, the young and economically active generation had to achieve a sufficient material base to allow a couple to establish a new household. Some marriage regulations favoured early, others late, marriage. Reasons for early marriage, i.e. shortly after reaching sexual maturity, may have been to avoid premarital sexual relations and children born out of wedlock. Early and obligatory marriage was a way of maintaining strong patriarchal ties as the young couple was unable to establish its own household at marriage and therefore began married life in the framework of the father’s household until it felt able to separate. Late and non-obligatory marriage, when people were in their twenties and thirties, resulted in different life courses compared to early marriage and, though frowned on by most of the world religions, opened space for alternative sexual relations out of wedlock in younger years. Gender relations as well as ideas © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 K. Kaser, Femininities and Masculinities in the Digital Age, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78412-6_3

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of manhood and womanhood were impacted by these kinds of fundamental decisions and regulations. The author of these lines has researched this kind of arrangements in the context of the Balkans and identified rural areas where gender relations were predominantly guided by principles such as patrilineality, patrilocality, and a prevailing patriarchal ideology (Kaser, 1995, 2000, 2008). Patrilineality refers to the organised flow of material and immaterial goods in an exclusively male line. Thus, women were excluded from the ownership of property, and inheritance was divided among male descendants only. A household’s honour was an important factor and was upheld through the display of patriarchal power and the protection of women’s chastity. Most areas of Eurasia Minor were dominated by the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years until it began to crumble in the course of the nineteenth century. Although there may have been a firm interrelationship between the empire’s internal tributary structure1 and this kind of patriarchal dominance, this was not necessarily the case, as in its Mediterranean and Arabic regions other variants of patriarchy were practised (Kaser, 2010, 2011). Patriarchal structures in the South Caucasus showed significant similarities to those in the Balkans, but of course there were also considerable deviations. In the mid-twentieth century, the new socialist states automatically questioned premodern forms of gender relations by emphasising social equality. Modern family laws that acknowledged equal rights for men and women in marital relations and limited paternal power in relation to children enriched customary family law with modern legal elements. But not only that: patriarchal gender relations were also caught up in the fundamental upheaval that turned agricultural societies into semi-­ industrial or even industrial ones. These processes were accompanied by extensive rural-urban migration, the inclusion of all young women into education on all levels, and the entry of most of women into the labour force. Women started to earn their own incomes, considered a precondition for their emancipation. The countryside, the conservative stronghold of patriarchal relations, lost its societal relevance and the practice of religion was limited to a minimum. The industrial worker, liberated from the shackles of the past, became the new societal ideal. Non-socialist countries such as Greece and Turkey were also touched by state-­ induced industrialisation, rural-urban migration, and social modernisation in the decades after the Second World War. Ideology and driving forces were different to those in the socialist neighbour countries, but their effects on gender relations were similar. Situated on the direct frontline dividing the West and the socialist world during the Cold War, the two countries were economically and politically supported by the United States. Intense industrialisation led to considerable rural-urban migration from the 1960s. In the course of these transformations, Athens and Istanbul became mega-cities with millions of inhabitants. However, there were fundamental differences in the impact on gender relations between the socialist and the 1  I use the term ‘tributary systems’ to describe historical states or empires that did not intervene in customary laws and traditional social relations as long as taxes and tributes were paid satisfactorily (Kaser, 2010, 421–25).

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non-­socialist countries. One of them was the social role of religion. While the Greek Orthodox Church saw its influence on society decline from the 1980s, for instance in the areas of education and the family, Islam in Turkey has celebrated a remarkable revival since that decade. The role of Islam has been reinforced by the conservative Islamic Justice and Development Party ruling the country since 2002. In the former socialist countries, a painful ideological and economic transition from socialist state economies to liberal multi-party systems and a free-market economy began in 1989–1991, a process which has not yet been completely concluded in countries such as Armenia and Azerbaijan. In the course of this process, the re-emergence of religion and other conservative ideologies went hand in hand with a temporary retraditionalisation of gender relations and of femininities and masculinities. Many women who considered their combined job and household obligations as a burden wanted, or were pushed, to withdraw from their public roles and to concentrate on duties in the home. The reorientation of women’s roles resulted in the redefinition of men’s roles, too, as husbands were expected to become the sole breadwinner – something that many men were unable to accomplish. After a conventional period in the visual representation of men and women in socialism, porno-chic culture imported from the West started to slosh through the regional media. At the same time, new Islamic-based puritanism, in the form of a deliberately anti-Western counterculture, began to gain ground. This chapter does not take us straight to visuality issues but will first analyse the realia of gender and marriage relations that have evolved over the past quarter of a century. The first part will sketch some patriarchal landscapes by drawing on qualitative and quantitative comparisons of gender relations within the region and on a global scale. This will be followed by the examination of dominant gender ideologies, discourses, and stereotypical femininities and masculinities. In this investigation of men and women, demographic developments are significant since some of the socialist regimes tried to guide demography into certain directions, for instance by banning abortion. Additionally, new and alarming developments came into being, such as gender-biased abortions in some regions. This, as well as the generally very precarious relationship between the heterosexual mainstream and lesbian, gay, and transgender members of society, can be interpreted as a result of the vigorous patriarchal gender ideologies still existing in Eurasia Minor.

Patriarchal Landscapes Although gender equality was a core element of official socialist doctrines, this ambitious target was never completely achieved. Equality was more of a specious appearance than a deeply rooted social reality. Therefore, a general evaluation of the socialist period seems appropriate before we come to the first decades following the dethronement of socialism. Katherine Verdery, one of the most influential analysts of the socialist gender regime, emphasises that the form of socialist government that prevailed in Eastern

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Europe – ‘socialist paternalism’ – constructed a society viewed as a family, and the nation as a parent state, headed by a wise party. Part of this parent-family model was the substantial reorganisation of gender roles within families, increasing the degree of gender equality between family members. This idea was not only ideologically motivated but also economically driven. Socialist regimes launched industrialisation programmes that were labour-intensive but low on capital and necessarily required the labour of each and every citizen, regardless of their sex. This policy included generous maternity and childcare leaves for women, enabling them to exercise greater control than before over procreative aspects in their lives (Verdery, 2013, 19–22). Consequently, women were encouraged to adopt a new feminine identity as both workers and mothers. In Georgia, for instance, women’s journals depicted the ‘new Soviet woman’ as a worker with no interest in her looks or time for beauty care. They upheld an image that contrasted with the earlier woman who had cared only about her appearance, superficial entertainment, and other ‘frivolities’. Letters to such magazines highlighted complaints about women who avoided work. The participation of women in waged labour was no longer presented as the paramount goal of female emancipation but constructed as a condition for the building of the new socialist state (Barkaia, 2018, 39). Karin Taylor (Taylor, 2006, 160–61) highlights another aspect of the patriarchal socialist state, namely that women became the main target of rather rigid sexual morality. Whereas the introduction of libertine sexual relations and the dissolution of marriage had been envisaged by thinkers in the early Soviet Union, by the 1960s socialist theorists in Bulgaria (and elsewhere) had thrown any notions of an end to marriage and the family firmly overboard. Monogamy was vigorously endorsed in the sense of a permanent relationship entered by a man and a woman. ‘Free communist monogamy’ was to be characterised by equality between the sexes and emotional harmony. Although the union was conceptualised as the personal affair of a couple, it would, paradoxically, be subject to social regulation. Indications of promiscuity among the young population were resolutely attacked by experts concerned with youth and sexual behaviour. Sexuality  – irrational, individualistic, capricious and spontaneous – was considered a massive obstacle to the creation of the rational, disciplined, collectivist, new socialist personality. Public information on contraceptives was thought to encourage pre-marital sexual activity among youth and was therefore limited. The issue of information on how to protect from pregnancy acquired additional ambivalence because demographic policies from the late 1960s were oriented towards boosting reproduction (ibid., 166–67). After a sharp increase in abortion rates in the 1960s, Romania was the first socialist country to prohibit abortion except on medical grounds in 1966, followed by Bulgaria in 1967. In 1985, Romania restricted access to abortion to women over 45 years. State and party chief Nicolae Ceausescu proclaimed: ‘The foetus is the socialist property of the whole of society. Giving birth is a patriotic duty. Those who refuse to have children are deserters escaping from the law of natural continuity’ (Kaser, 2008, 118).

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These kinds of patriarchal anomalies during socialism led people to react in the opposite direction after the system collapsed. What feminist literature has called the patriarchal backlash or retraditionalisation (Blagojević, 2010), i.e. a return to traditional (pre-socialist) gender relations, was considered progressive by many. I coined the term ‘patriarchy after patriarchy’, the title of my monograph (Kaser, 2008), to paraphrase this contradictory idea of progressive return. Of course, it was impossible to reconnect the 1990s with the 1940s or the 1910s and to re-establish the family and gender relations of that time, yet the idea appeared attractive. But a quarter of a century after the end of socialism, can we still talk about an ongoing patriarchal backlash? Despite all their weaknesses, did not socialist policies on gender equality achieve much more than conservatives have since been able to revise?

Qualitative Evidence In the social sciences, the term ‘patriarchy’ is rarely used any longer because formal or open patriarchy has been weakened and dissolved over the previous centuries (Holter, 2005, 19–20). However, Ana Luleva has discussed the establishment of a ‘patriarchal gender order’ in post-socialism, applying ‘patriarchy’ not in literal sense but rather in a metaphorical way. According to Luleva, the patriarchal gender order is the result of a new, neoconservative discourse, in which the discredited idea of gender equality has been completely neglected in the wake of 1989. Thus, stereotypical conceptions of the sexes (some of them openly discriminatory) have been reproduced in popular TV broadcasts, in everyday communication and political speech (Luleva, 2006, 17–18). I believe that the term patriarchy, in this broader sense, is still useful to describe the structural discrimination of women. Thus, I use the plural form ‘patriarchies’ in the heading of this section in order to indicate that a plurality of stereotypical conceptions about the sexes is still in circulation. Besides patriarchy, the list of terms that have gradually lost their earlier significance can be extended. In terms of the concept of masculinity, two relevant prototypes are frequently mentioned in connection with our region: the ‘Balkan patriarch’ and the ‘Mediterranean macho’. I believe that this differentiated view of a monolithic masculinity can be usefully applied to the premodern era (Kaser, 2010); however, it becomes very problematic when patriarchy (masculinity) in the Balkans is exclusively associated with violence: ‘…therefore, the study of West Balkan masculinities has a decidedly important and specific role to play in delineating the varied aspects of globalised patriarchal violence’ (Dumančić & Krolo, 2017, 175, FN 2). The same applies when a ‘real man’ in the second half of the twentieth century is defined as a male ‘who drinks heavily, spends money freely, fights bravely, and raises a large family. In this way he shows an “indomitable virility” that distinguishes him from effeminate counterfeits’ (Gilmore, 1990, 16). It is possible to encounter that kind of man, and there are enough around, but to generalise this phenomenon for the Balkans is more than problematic.

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The same is true of the macho type, no longer considered an exclusively Mediterranean phenomenon. For instance, with regard to Romania a widespread form of masculinity is described as ‘macho’: ‘…a form of masculine social behaviour by which virility is presented as socially desirable, as privileged and valuable, without being necessarily dominant in terms of the political order… The macho is always “in charge”, takes over discussions and is constantly controlling others by asserting its manhood...’ (Pop, 2016). We can meet these kinds of men in Romania, but also in England or elsewhere. And there are scores of the type of man described by Herzfeld in his ‘Poetics of Manhood’ about Crete, where ‘…there is less focus on “being a good man” than on “being good at being a man” – a stance that stresses performative excellence, the ability to foreground manhood by means of deeds that strikingly “speak for themselves”’ (Herzfeld, 1988, 45). This entails not only adequate performance within set patterns; it also involves public display, being on view, and having the courage to expose oneself to risk (Gilmore, 1990, 30, 36, 48). As well as qualitative and epistemologically limited observations, more meaningful quantitative studies of structural gender inequality have been conducted and are available in the form of international indices established by international organisations such as the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the World Economic Forum, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Quantitative Evidence Internationally comparable gender (in)equality indices usually assess life expectancy, the participation of men and women in labour and education, their representation in politics, women’s reproductive capacity, the maternal mortality ratio, the adolescent fertility rate, and aspects of cultural and symbolic power disparities between the sexes (Fábián, 2015, 19–24). If we look at some survey results, a nuanced but distinct picture appears. The World Values Survey of 2008 investigated the gender-specific distribution of social roles in 46 European countries. In the five Nordic countries with Denmark at the top, the distribution of social roles was less gender-specific than at the bottom of the list, where we find Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kosovo, Malta, Ukraine, and Georgia. Most countries in the Western Balkans showed close to average scores; Montenegro and North Macedonia showed more traditional gender-role attitudes than the rest of the Western Balkans, while Romania was on a par with Montenegro and North Macedonia (Ringdal, 2015, 324–26). This survey also investigated attitudes to abortion, divorce, and sexual morality (2008). Whereas the Nordic countries justified abortion, divorce, and casual sex to the highest degree, the Eurasia Minor countries tended towards the opposite end of the scale. With regard to abortion we find Kosovo, followed by Moldova, Malta, Turkey, and Azerbaijan at the bottom, Bulgaria above, and Bosnia and Herzegovina

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below the average. Divorce received the lowest scores in Kosovo followed by Moldova, Armenia, Turkey, and Azerbaijan. In other words, the most permissive countries in terms of abortion and divorce were the Nordic countries. Attitudes to casual sex were least permissive in Kosovo, in the same range as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Northern Cyprus, and Turkey (ibid., 326–28). UNDP maintains the Gender Development Index (GDI). To summarise its results for the beginning of the twenty-first century: the ex-Yugoslav states and the Caucasus republics, which were engaged in armed conflict in the 1990s, saw their GDI values slide. Countries such as Albania, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina were on a moderate level; Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia ranked lower, and Bulgaria, Romania, and Serbia ranked higher. Of the post-socialist countries, the Baltics were positioned best (Cukrowska, 2015). With regard to the participation of men and women in political and economic decision-making, the three South Caucasus states made the biggest progress in the period 1990 to 2008, and the Balkan countries the lowest. In terms of gender equality in health, empowerment, and labour participation, Albania and Romania were among the countries with pronounced inequality, along with Armenia and Azerbaijan. Albania showed improvement since 1995. Bulgaria belonged to the group of states with low inequality (Fábián, 2015, 24–33). If we combine this data, we can roughly observe a European northwest-southeast incline with the lowest gender equality and strongest patriarchal sexual morality (high degree of control of female sexuality) in Eurasia Minor. Orthodox countries are distinctly patriarchal and more conservative regarding sexual morality compared to the predominantly protestant/Lutheran countries in the north. Muslim countries, such as Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Kosovo seem even slightly more patriarchal and conservative. These tendencies were already noted in the early 1990s in a survey comparing the attitudes of Scottish and Romanian students. The results clearly showed that the Romanian students, male and female, were more conservative with respect to gender-related issues than their Scottish counterparts (Durndell, 1995, 761–63). This European northwest-southeast rift seems to be historically entrenched but interrupted by the socialist era. Siegfried Gruber and Mikołaj Szołtysek have compiled a patriarchy index that incorporates a range of variables related to familial behaviour, including nuptiality and age at marriage, living arrangements, post-­ marital residence, power relations within domestic groups, the position of elderly family members, and the sex of offspring (Szołtysek & Gruber, 2014; Gruber & Szołtysek, 2016). To summarise their results in brief: around 1900, Western Europe was much less patriarchal than Eastern Europe. The Balkans had the largest concentration of regions with intensely patriarchal family organisation, evident especially among Albanians, Bulgarians, and Serbs. Most of the other Balkan regions were found to have high, but not very high, levels of patriarchy (Gruber & Szołtysek, 2016). This kind of comparative index provides an excellent orientation for exploring imbalance in historical gender relations and reaffirms what had been assumed before, namely that the extent of patriarchally shaped gender relations in Europe was highest in (post)-Ottoman Europe. Unfortunately, a similar, reliable patriarchy index does not exist for the period relevant to this study. The comparative study

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‘Evaluation of Gender Disparities from the Balkan Countries’ (Tudora et al., 2015) and the results of two other surveys (Simkus, 2015, 340–48) conducted in late 2003 and early 2004 in the Balkan countries are based on rather inconsistent data and will be disregarded here. Nevertheless, the cited statistical results from around 1900 and 2000 indicate that historically entrenched patriarchy was not wiped out by socialist equal opportunity policies. In sum, all relevant data indicates the location of a historical and contemporary European core of gender relations shaped by patriarchy  – or by discrimination against women – in the Balkans and the South Caucasus, and more specifically in the Western Balkan countries with their predominantly Orthodox and Muslim populations. The South Caucasus and Turkey, not included in all of the mentioned studies but researched in some, can be added to this European heartland of male dominance and women’s discrimination. Empirical evidence shows that this is not a new phenomenon but deeply rooted in history. This historical entrenchment, however, does not mean that history must be repeated indefinitely.

Being Man and Woman – Ideologies and Discourses As the previous section has shown based on quantifiable indicators, women in Eurasia Minor are rather disadvantaged in many spheres of social life compared with the rest of Europe. This section attempts to document how this fact is ideologically and discursively grounded. The presentation of evidence starts by looking at public opinion on equality in contemporary Armenia, proceeds to explore the prevailing discourses on gender roles as well as religious discourses on men and women and gender stereotypes in education, and concludes with an analysis of the construction of one distinct form of hegemonic femininity versus a whole range of masculinities.

Gender Discourses To begin with, public opinion in the region on gender equality and the abolishment of discrimination against women is not positive throughout. This is partly due to the widely held view – for example in Armenia – that gender equality is imposed by the European Union and the United States and could destroy Armenian families by giving women more power and encouraging them to raise their voices (YSU Centre for Gender and Leadership Studies, 2014, 1). A study conducted in Yerevan among 50 teachers and 283 students in 2013 shows that traditional gender stereotypes exist among high school teachers and students (Silova, 2016). These may be just snapshots, but it seems justified to assume that they not only give a brief picture of the situation in single countries but constitute a discourse shared across the region.

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This is highlighted, for instance, by the results of a sociological research project conducted in 2009 among 550 students from eight Bulgarian universities. They showed a profound disposition towards traditional gender roles, whereas new gender identities were still in the making. Traditional and modern understandings of gender roles co-existed. Expectations of women’s roles seemed to be in a state of deeper change, whereas men’s roles had a stronger tendency to remain unaltered (Kirova & Slavova, 2012, 68–69). In the case of Serbia, representative country-wide sociological research indicates a return to traditional, patriarchal values and models of behaviour in all aspects of family life for the period between the mid-1990s and the mid-2000s, spanning family organisation, residence patterns, relationships between partners, and parent– child relationships. The retraditionalisation and repatriarchisation of gender roles seemed most apparent in the domestic division of labour. A survey conducted in 2003 revealed that in almost 70 percent of households a traditional division of labour existed, while in only 1 percent did a modern division of labour prevail with family chores equally divided between the household members of different sexes (Drezgić, 2010, 966–67). On the other hand, Romanian research results indicate significant progress towards more egalitarian gender attitudes. The trends are similar for both sexes, and differences between the convictions of women and men seem quite small (Voicu & Tufiş, 2012, 72, 74–75). Continuing our journey through the Balkan and the Caucasian countries, in Moldova the current gender balance is rather inconsistent. On the one hand, there are still strong patriarchal stereotypes concerning the role of men. On the other hand, especially in urban and young families, the image of the father as patriarch is changing as more young fathers wish to participate in child-­ rearing and education, and to help with household work (Bodrug-Lungu, 2004, 178–79). Compared to Moldova, men’s involvement in household duties in Georgia seems rather low. According to the results of a recent survey, men do 24 percent of chores, compared to 46 percent performed by women; 15 percent are performed by the spouses together, and 15 percent by others. The majority of respondents supported the gender division of labour in the family, but their opinions differed on the extent to which household tasks should be shared between husband and wife (Sumbadze, 2018, 177). However, Georgian society is slowly moving towards more gender equality as indicated by the results of the World Values Survey (WVS) carried out in Georgia in 1996, 2009, and 2014. The 2014 WVS study revealed that 65 percent of the population subscribed to the idea that having a job is the best way for a woman to be independent. Results by age and gender suggest that women and the younger generation are spearheading changes in attitudes toward gender equality (ibid., 177–78). This section has reproduced predominant secular discourses on men and women in countries with an overwhelming Orthodox population and a socialist past. These discourses emphasise traditional gender roles; however, women and younger generations appear to be driving a shift towards more gender equality. Religious

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discourses are worth being tackled separately. They fit into the picture of conservative gender discourses outlined above.

 eligious Discourses on the Complementarity of Men R and Women With regard to the retraditionalisation of women’s roles in post-socialist transition, the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina is relevant for other Muslim countries and regions, too. In the context of Islam, retraditionalisation has been mainly triggered by promotion of the idea of complementarity, which stresses the equality of men and women before God but ascribes to them different ‘natural’ roles that complement each other. This role ascription privileges men, who earn the household income and are considered objective and capable of expressing sensible judgement and making rational decisions as the head of the household. In contrast, women should be proud of their apparently ‘natural’ nurturing qualities and act primarily as mothers and wives, and only then, if necessary, take paid jobs as well. This complementarity principle, officially promoted by the Islamic community (Bartulović, 2015, 285–89), is also shared by Christian churches. The Roman Catholic Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) took a first step towards recognising the equality of men and women, but scholars later returned to the complementarity approach which, together with their Orthodox counterparts, they continue to encourage even today. The complementarity principle promoted by the religious communities not only assigns roles in the family and community but in public life as a whole (Spahić Šiljak, 2010, 62–64), as is also mirrored in employment relations. Studies show that almost one third of Bosnian women stay at home and care for their families, while virtually no men do (Somun-Krupalija, 2011, 15–16; Spahić Šiljak, 2013, 121–22). If a woman chooses not to work outside home, this is welcomed as long as the husband can provide sufficiently for the family. Quite often, young women with good career prospects quit their jobs upon marriage or when the first child is born. This may be a personal decision; however, it can also be argued that pressure from the wider family and society contributes to this step (Somun-Krupalija, 2011, 15–16). Islamic complementary discourse in Bosnia and Herzegovina has some specifics, as a study by Nina Bosankić (2014, 14) reveals. The central aspect is the proclamation of re-Islamisation and retraditionalisation by prominent political and/or religious leaders as de-objectification and emancipation with respect to women. According to this view, women are saved from the labour market where they are exploited and kept in the ‘chains of materialism’, and are directed towards duties in the home under a male household head. Muslim feminist activists, however, contradict this mainstream discourse by deploying a feminist reinterpretation of the Qur’an and the hadiths, which aims to contribute to global discourses on gender equality and situates the socialist legacy and contemporary Islam within a

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manageable ideological framework for improving the status of women (Bartulović, 2015, 285–89). Contrary to Bosnia, Muslims in formerly Soviet-ruled Azerbaijan reinforced traditional taboos on the behaviour of women in public, showing strong disapproval of women smoking, driving a car, wearing trousers, and consorting with or marrying non-Muslim men (Heyat, 2006, 396–400). Meanwhile, this stance has shifted somewhat, at least in urban contexts; today, gender norms and the role of women in the public sphere are constantly repositioned between Western consumerist ideology and Islamist projections of feminine ideals. Although Azerbaijan and Turkey look back on very different twentieth-century histories, the religious set of values accorded to men and women do not seem to differ significantly. The common expectations attached to women by most Sunni Muslims are of motherhood and acceptance of the home as the woman’s place, with women as caretakers of the family. The belief is shared that male and female tasks are different and therefore men and women cannot be equal in the sense of carrying out the same functions (Alimen 2018, 170). A study conducted in Turkey among university students in the mid-2000s, however, indicated that Islamic gender discourses had not yet strongly infiltrated the student population (Özkan & Lajunen 2005, 103–9). Like the former socialist countries which were eager to quickly overcome the socialist rhetoric of gender equality by proclaiming the ‘natural’ complementarity of the sexes, public opinion in Turkey has increasingly supressed Kemalist discourses of equality – with few exceptions, like the students mentioned above – and supports a religious culture of gender complementarity. Socialisation at home and education in public institutions play a decisive role in these revisions of gender discourse.

Gender Stereotypes in Education The lack of mandatory formal education for Muslim girls was a significant deficit of Muslim societies and populations before socialism. The large majority of Muslim women did not know how to read and write: in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 85 percent of women were illiterate, in North Macedonia 88 percent, and in Kosovo 90 percent (Ballinger & Ghodsee, 2011, 16). Today in Azerbaijan, for instance, nearly all women have attended secondary school, and the female literacy rate is 99 percent compared to 85 percent in Turkey, 81 percent in Iran, and 58 percent in Egypt (van Klaveren et al., 2010, 26–27; Ismayilova & El-Bassel, 2013, 25–26). If one digs deeper, it seems that Azeri women are almost equally represented in educational institutions; however, the higher the level, the fewer there are. In the academic year of 2009–2010, 48 percent of faculty staff were female but 91 percent of university rectors were male. Academic careers are much more difficult for women when it comes to earning a PhD degree (Aghayeva, 2013, 78–81). In 2010, 12 percent of

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female and 88 percent of male university graduates held a doctoral degree (Aghayeva, 2012, 36–37). Women are not only disadvantaged in their access to high-level academic advancement; they are also misrepresented in school textbook visuals. Formal access to education is important, but textbook representations of men, women, and LGBTIQ persons matter, too. A comprehensive study of textbooks covering Albania, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Romania, among others, has examined gender images (Magno & Silova, 2007, 648–54, 657). The study concluded that textbooks promote a rigid division of gender roles, and the nature of these roles are unfavourable to women. The stereotypical presentation of gender roles noticeably increased in many countries during the 1990s. Previously popular images of women cosmonauts, engineers, and factory workers, frequently found in socialist-era textbooks, were increasingly replaced by images of women as housewives and mothers. In particular, women were portrayed in narrowly defined domestic contexts, as taking care of children, cooking, knitting, sewing, washing dishes, and cleaning the house. Domestic work was presented as their primary responsibility  – one that defined them as women. Although university-based gender studies programmes are widely available throughout the region, they are rarely established in pre-service teacher training institutions. Given the lack of attention to gender issues in teacher training, it is not surprising that teachers carry gender stereotypes into the classroom. Graduates of teacher training courses in upper secondary schools and colleges are encouraged to reproduce behaviours, mentalities, and gender stereotypes, and are discouraged from trying to introduce changes at these levels. On the contrary, there is evidence of teachers treating boys and girls differently and demanding different standards of behaviour from each sex. Teachers even reproduce stereotypical attitudes about the relative intelligence of boys and girls in the belief that girls’ academic achievement is only a result of their hard work (ibid.). Looking at gender relations in terms of the reproduction of stereotypes and conventional textbook images, it is no surprise to find that traditional concepts of femininity and masculinity are still at work. Aside from general stereotypes, there are regional peculiarities. Women are portrayed primarily as mothers and housewives. According to the complementarity discourse discussed above, young mothers should quit paid labour to become housewives. No wonder that these two components are intrinsic to regional hegemonic femininity.

Motherhood and Chastity as Hegemonic Femininity The investigation of hegemonic femininities and masculinities with regard to Eurasia Minor results in a surprise. According to our theoretical premise, we should expect hegemonic masculinity (Connell) and a plurality of fragmented femininities (Laurie), but the actual reality of gender relations in Eurasia Minor indicates just the opposite: hegemonic femininity without significant variations and hegemonic

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masculinity with numerous variations  – the literature mentions more than half a dozen. This form of femininity is hegemonic because it embodies the maternal ideal upheld in porno-chic culture as well as in veiling-chic culture: the woman as a (pious) married mother, housekeeper, and submissive wife, whose sexual behaviour leaves no doubt about her chastity. This also underlines that popular porno-chic images are restricted to unmarried women. The prevalence of hegemonic femininity is confirmed by numerous studies, a few of which are cited here. For instance, Albanian lifestyle magazines at the beginning of the 2000s underlined that a woman’s good looks and career success were closely linked, but her life would never be complete without marriage and motherhood (Londo, 2006, 134–58). More detailed empirical examples from Turkey and Armenia confirm this initial impression. A recent survey conducted in the Turkish city of Izmir on perceptions of femininity among male university students revealed that roughly 85 percent thought that being a woman meant being a good mother and wife and obeying the husband (Bürgin & Bengi Gümrükçü, 2015, 246–50). These findings can be supplemented by differences depending on the grade of religiosity. Islamic culture considers sexual drive an essential part of human nature and women’s bodies created to arouse sexual desire in men other than their husbands. Therefore, women should de-emphasise their beauty and cultivate their spiritual side, mirroring modesty and chastity (Hortaçsu & Ertürk, 2003, 2020). Thus, control of the sexuality of young women and wives by male family members complement hegemonic femininity – and hegemonic masculinity. Female sexuality is connected to honour and shame in relation to the father’s or husband’s group. The extramarital affair of a husband or wife is considered a severe violation, although there are no state laws restricting a woman or man from engaging in a sexual relationship before, after, or during marriage. However, men’s extramarital affairs are commonly accepted whereas women’s relationships are practically taboo as a woman’s value depends on her virginity before marriage and fidelity afterwards (Akpınar, 2003, 427–32). Although the range of kin involved in upholding the honour of women is smaller in cities, the view of honour as a family possession is standard throughout Turkey. It is not surprising that families in Turkey monitor the behaviour of their women, in particular that of daughters, with a scrutiny that borders on the obsessive (Baştuğ, 2002, 109–10). This concept of group honour related to women is by far not limited to Turkey; it is also common in other Muslim countries such as Azerbaijan (Cornell, 2006, 26; Tohidi, 1999, 106–7) and in Balkan countries, but also in the Greek Orthodox culture of Cyprus (Cockburn, 2004, 118). Sociological surveys conducted in recent years add facets of constructed manhood and womanhood in Armenia and Azerbaijan to the overall picture. One of these surveys conducted in Armenia in 2013 revealed that young people listed the top three qualities desired in women as ‘feminine’ (65.9 percent), ‘modest’ (63.6 percent), and ‘caring’ (59.2 percent) (YSU Centre for Gender and Leadership Studies 2014, 2). They considered women the main homemakers and supporters of their husbands (Beukian, 2014, 249, 257, 261–62). A survey on Azerbaijan stressed similar characteristics based on behavioural codes requiring modesty and chastity. For example, Azerbaijani women are encouraged to speak in a quiet voice, be

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reserved, and exhibit shyness. The most important aspect is chastity, which has implications for the perception of public decency, the honour of the family, and Azerbaijani women’s mobility (Pearce and Vitak, 2016, 2597). In conclusion, available data suggests that the modest (pious) married mother, housekeeper, and obedient wife whose sexual behaviour leaves no doubt about her chastity constitutes the hegemonic ideal of femininity without noteworthy variants. There are similarities and differences between the regional ideal and those in other European countries such as Austria. In terms of similarity, the wish to become a mother (and father) is strong among Austrians, too, where less than 10 percent under the age of 40 state that they do not want to have children. One of the disparities is that around one third of Austrian mothers remain unmarried and many married mothers get divorced (Buber-Ennser et al., 2013, 28–35), which is certainly not considered desirable for women in most of the Eurasia Minor countries.

 iolent and Repressive – Hegemonic Masculinity V and Domestic Violence As already discussed, femininity as well as masculinity do not constitute a constant, universal essence, but are rather an ever-changing fluid assemblage of meanings and behaviours that vary depending on context. Thus, this study focuses on the plural – masculinities – which recognises the very diverse constructions of manhood that we confront. By pluralising the term, we acknowledge that masculinity means different things to different groups of men at different times. What unites the various forms is the fact that a hegemonic definition of masculinity is constructed in relation to variants and subordinated masculinities as well as in relation to women (Kimmel, 2001, 22–23; Messerschmidt & Messner, 2018, 745–52). The question, then, is whether a regional hegemonic masculinity exists in Eurasia Minor, and in addition a variant or variants of local masculinities. The fruitless attempts to construct a Balkan patriarch and a Mediterranean macho as hegemonic figures have already been mentioned. Similarly, the work of Gilmore (1990, 48) can be added here with its circum-Mediterranean model of masculinity – the ‘real man’ who drinks heavily, spends money freely, fights bravely, and raises a large family (ibid., 16) – in regions spanning Andalusia, Crete, Sicily, the Balkans, and Turkey. In the meantime, three relevant transnational studies presenting research on masculinity in the Balkans have come to other conclusions than Gilmore – not because he was wrong, but because their approaches and questions are different. The first study presents findings from the International Men and Gender Equality Survey – the data was collected between 2009 and 2012 – and concludes that men in countries such as Brazil and India are generally positive about gender equality and support public policy initiatives such as quotas to improve the participation of women in government, education, and business. However, these high levels of support have not yet translated into equality for women in practice in most of these

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settings, as demonstrated by low levels of men’s participation in household and caregiving tasks, and in high levels of violence (Levtov et  al., 2014, 471–2, 491–501). The second study deals with how young men from the Balkans perceive manhood based on a long-term regional project on gender-based violence launched in 2007. In the eyes of young men from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, and Serbia, men should be physically strong and muscular, be able to protect themselves as well as others, have a strong character and attitude, be successful all round, play sports, drink alcohol, be sexually ‘well-endowed’ and not effeminate, ‘soft’, or homosexual (Dušanić, 2012, 17–19). Interestingly, these responses to a certain extent confirm the results of the previously mentioned survey, namely that participation in the household and caregiving tasks do not belong to the idea of masculinity popular among young men, but rather physical strength and virility. The third study I would like to mention here refers to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia, and was recently published by Marko Dumančić and Krešimir Krolo (2017) who emphasise the temporal dynamics of masculinities. The authors state that the post-war period in the newly independent states of former Yugoslavia generated a state of instability, creating a space for fluctuating national gender norms. The attitude towards masculinity has, in general, become increasingly ambiguous and multivalent  – though traditional norms have not lost primacy in public life (ibid., 155–6). Two national surveys on prevailing masculinities focusing on whether masculinity is actually in a state of flux with ambiguities between progressive and traditional notions, as established above, have been undertaken in Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In Montenegro, the survey was conducted mostly in 2009 among young men between the ages of 17 and 25 of various educational levels and diverse economic status. The only divergent pattern discovered was that young men who resorted more often to violence were less educated and mostly from working-class families. Data clearly showed that masculinity is expressed in several variants, even when only physical violence is taken as a parameter (Banović, 2016, 55–58). A study conducted in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2012 among all three major ethno-religious groups showed that the attitudes of men to gender relationships were saturated with traditional beliefs and stereotypes about gender roles and the distribution of power between the sexes. Over 52 percent of men agreed with the statement that the most important role of the woman is connected to housework and taking care of children. A total of 49 percent believed that the man should play the dominant role in making the most important decisions, and 23 percent of the respondents thought that there are certain situations when a woman deserves a beating. About 73 percent believed that a man must be ‘tough’, while 68 percent agreed that a man’s reputation must be defended by force if necessary. This indicates that violence is determined by perceptions of masculinity and the wish to preserve and defend a man’s honour and his image as a ‘strong’ male. In his conclusion, the author reconfirmed the prevalence of traditional and patriarchal convictions about the dominant role of the heterosexual man, manifested through homophobia and, to

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a certain extent, an inclination towards gender-based violence and unprotected sex (Dušanić, 2012, 50–52). What we can glean from these studies is that toughness, violence, the tendency to oppress wives, a latent concept of male superiority over women, strength and protectiveness, and an inclination to homophobia are important ingredients of regional hegemonic masculinity. While it is hard to determine a special field of ambivalence between traditional and progressive features of masculinity, it is possible to establish that higher education and urban contexts contribute to a progressive attitude. Research has yielded the thesis that in the reality of everyday life, regional hegemonic masculinity is practised in various variations, or, according to Connell’s classification, in the form of nonhegemonic, local hegemonic masculinities. In our case, attention can be drawn to, for instance, the figure of the frajer2 (a stylised subject of heterosexual desire) (Jansen, 2010), the semi-criminal lawbreaker (Kambourov, 2003, 149–53), and in Turkey, the neo-Muslim as well as the secular Kemalist (Akyüz, 2012, 68–86; Çetin, 2015, 53–55; Alimen, 2018, 169). The picture can be refined more by including local hegemonic masculinities, for example, the case of an arbitrary homosocial friend in the Turkish Black Sea city of Trabzon, who praises manly qualities and talks offensively about women and queer people (Bozok, 2013, 48–52, 220–1). At least one clearly nonhegemonic type can be added: the loser or crisis type, a man who has failed as male breadwinner (Kambourov, 2003, 149–53; Massino & Popa, 2015, 174–75). So far, I have discussed regional hegemonic masculinity and various local nonhegemonic masculinities. On the global level, Connell identifies transnational business masculinity as the only hegemonic masculinity (Messerschmidt & Messner, 2018, 871–94). Domestic researchers of Eurasia Minor have made hardly any reference to Connell’s imaginative suggestion. Dimitar Kambourov (2003, 149–53) alone has taken up this idea for Bulgaria. As the economic situation at the beginning of the twenty-first century was still deteriorating, this would have stopped most Bulgarian businessmen from being considered representatives of this type of transnational masculinity. Although more research on the phenomenon of global hegemonic masculinity in Eurasia Minor is lacking, this short analysis has yielded one regional hegemonic masculinity and more than half a dozen of its local variants. Contrary to femininity, which is characterised by one dominant hegemonic model (the chaste, married, obedient housewife and mother, submissive to her husband) without noteworthy variants, masculinities show a plurality of characteristics. However, common to hegemonic masculinity is a discernible tendency towards male violence against women in a domestic setting. The question is whether violence perpetrated by husbands in the Balkans and South Caucasus actually stands out from the rest of Europe and whether it can be interpreted as an integral component of a crisis of masculinity.

2  The slavified term frajer is of (outdated) German origin and means to ask for the daughter’s hand in marriage. The term as the author uses it comes close to womanizer.

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There are two main problems with data on domestic and gender-based violence.3 First, only reported cases of violence are statistically relevant. Incidents of ­unreported cases are presumed to be much higher. Second, because of differences in their methodological approaches, national statistics on domestic violence are hardly comparable to each other. Thus, we should be cautious with figures though it is unavoidable to mention them in this context. Surveys in Germany have concluded that every fourth woman between the ages of 16 and 85 and who has lived in a partnership has experienced physical, in many cases also sexual, violence by her partner once or several times (Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft, Familie und Jugend, Sektion Familie und Jugend, 2010). In Austria and Slovenia, every seventh woman, or 13 percent, has been a victim of violence on the part of a partner (2008).4 Published data for the countries of Eurasia Minor show significantly higher figures. Intimate partner violence is a serious problem in the core countries of patriarchy in the Balkans and South Caucasus. In North Macedonia, Moldova, and Albania, doctors, lawyers, judges, prosecutors, journalists, women’s advocates, and other individuals have reported incidents of the severe abuse of women at the hands of their intimate partners. Data from Albania indicates that spousal violence is highly prevalent, being one of the highest reported internationally. According to a survey conducted in 2013, 59.4 percent of women reported ‘ever’ experiencing domestic violence in their marriage or intimate relationship, and 53 percent of women were ‘currently’ experiencing gender-based domestic violence, i.e. within the 12 months prior to the interview (Burazeri et al., 2006, 235–36; Haarr, 2013, 12, 20, 33–34, 41, 46–47; Çoni, 2014, 306–8). A 2010 survey of 2500 Serbian women found that 31.8 percent had experienced psychological violence during that year, while 48.7 percent stated that they had suffered some sort of abuse during their lifetime (Dumančić & Krolo, 2017, 156). Figures from Bosnia and Herzegovina are almost identical. Every second woman has experienced some form of gender-based violence from the age of 15, while every fifth woman is likely to have been a victim within the past 12 months (Dušanić 2012; UNFPA, 2013, 16; USAID, 2016, 87–88). Figures from Moldova indicate that up to two thirds of women come into contact with both physical and psychological violence (Enachi, 2014, 569; Pozarny, 2016c, 38–39). Data on Georgia is even more alarming. A survey found that more than three quarters (78.7 percent) of respondents declared that domestic violence occurred 3  According to the definition by USAID, gender-based violence against women is violence that is directed against a woman because she is a woman. Forms of violence result in physical, psychological, sexual and economic harm or threats thereof, in public or in private spheres. Domestic violence is violence in the private sphere between members of a family. Although survivors of domestic violence are men and women, the former are more often perpetrators and the latter more often victims (USAID, 2016, 85). 4  http://evaw-global-database.unwomen.org/en/countries/europe/austria; http://evaw-global-database.unwomen.org/en/countries/europe/slovenia. This is the official data. In the case of Austria, unofficial estimates have established that about 20 percent of women in partnerships have experienced a form of violence: https://eige.europa.eu/rdc/eige-publications/combating-violenceagainst-women-austria (accessed on 15 July 2020).

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‘often or very often’ (Pozarny, 2016b; Javakhishvili & Butsashvili, 2018, 110–11). The stance of the Orthodox Church against divorce, and therefore in favour of women’s subordination, tends to work against efforts to address domestic violence. Priests have condemned domestic violence only in the most severe cases of brutality (Javakhishvili & Butsashvili, 2018, 120). In Armenian society, violence against women is widely accepted and, in some circumstances, even constitutes the norm, especially inside the family. In a recent survey, 57 percent of men and 44 percent of women agreed with the statement that ‘women provoke their husbands to beat them’ (Nikoghosyan, 2015, 23). Official data from Azerbaijan indicates a low rate of domestic violence (14 percent in 2006),5 however according to unofficial estimates around half of the women in partnerships have been exposed to various forms of violence, but only 1 percent reported assaults to the police (van Klaveren et  al., 2010, 10, 23; Ismayilova & El-Bassel, 2013, 2533–5). This short overview ends with Turkey, where violence against women has reached such a serious level that even people who generally ignore human rights cannot disregard it. The almost daily cases of femicide are the most concrete evidence of current domestic violence. Despite all efforts, a notable decrease in violence against women has not yet been achieved. On the contrary, unofficial statistics reveal an increase in the number of femicide cases – the ultimate form of violence against women (Çetinkaya Aydın, 2015, 98). Although the mentioned figures must be treated with caution, all show the horrifying extent of gender-based violence within marriage and partnerships for each country. Around half to two thirds of women in partnerships have experienced one or several forms of gender-based violence. This data reveals two aspects: first, the male self-understanding of masculinity includes violent acts against wives when husbands deem it necessary. Second, the motivation of wives to stand up to the husband represents resistance against patriarchal suppression. Thus, if it is possible to actually determine that there is a growing crisis of manhood, men’s failure as breadwinners is perhaps not the only cause of violence, but resistance against male dominance and demands of undisputed obedience could be one of several triggers. This section has revealed that discourses on male-dominated gender relations are accompanied by complementary ideologies of femininity and masculinity. A tough character, the use of violence, a distinct tendency to supress women in the family by force, the principle of male superiority over women, the need to act as strong and protective, and an inclination to homophobia are important ingredients of hegemonic masculinity in the region. This is complemented by the image of the (pious) married mother and submissive wife, whose sexuality must be under male control. However, male control and masculinity have been questioned by women as well as gay movements which are increasingly leaving clandestine spaces to fight for equal rights in the public sphere. Homosexuals are widely considered the biggest threat to heterosexual masculinity.

5  http://evaw-global-database.unwomen.org/en/search?keywords=Azerbaijan (accessed on 15 July 2020).

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Gays, Lesbians, and Transgenderism The intensity of patriarchal relations and masculinities with a strong emphasis on male supremacy on the one hand, and misogyny and rejection of LGBTIQ persons on the other, are strongly interrelated. As elaborated in the previous chapter, the European northwest-southeast rift in patriarchal attitudes overlaps with the gap in the provision of legal equality to the LGBTIQ community. The main explanation for this overlap is that patriarchy forcefully affects attitudes towards LGBTIQ persons, who are seen to threaten masculine norms, whereas in less patriarchal cultures the existence of LGBTIQ persons is more often considered a fact (Hofstede, 2001, 325–26). It makes sense to first visit the countries where the situation for LGBTIQ persons is most serious in a short overview  – namely, the South Caucasus. The three Caucasian nations are united by the idea that same-sex relations are an import from the West. Surveys from Azerbaijan show that a homosexual person is considered a despicable and immoral being. Homosexual relationships are surrounded by myth and presented as exotic. The main argument against the acceptance of LGBTIQ persons comes down to: ‘homosexuality is artificially spread by the West’ and ‘it’s all foreign to Azerbaijan’ (Shahnazaryan et  al., 2016, 11–14). Most lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual people in Azerbaijan are invisible to the public. However, there are some bars in Baku where LGBTIQ community members meet. In addition to bars and informal groups of friends and acquaintances, the Internet is an important place for virtual encounters (van der Veur, 2007, 18–19). In 2015, numerous violent attacks were carried out against LGBTIQ individuals; several murders were reported and investigated in that year (ILGA Europe, 2016, 41). In Armenia, LGBTIQ people are also subject to harassment and physical violence. Recent studies have highlighted that the pervasive negative sentiment towards them has hardly changed. According to these studies, nine out of ten citizens of Armenia view LGBTIQ people negatively. Since people largely perceive homosexuality as a ‘skilfully imported western perversity’, ‘decadent’ intellectuals have often been the targets of discrimination and attacks. Ultra-nationalist discourse accuses representatives of sexual minorities and their sympathisers of destroying the family and hence the nation. The Armenian Apostolic Church considers them sexually deviant and sinful (Shahnazaryan et al., 2016, 5–9). Similarly, in Turkey LGBTIQ people remain legally unprotected from discrimination. The hate speech consistently produced by leading political figures and the fact that such statements are not publicly condemned is of particular concern. Violence is a common thread linking many instances of attack involving LGBTIQ people (ILGA Europe, 2016, 164–67). In the Black Sea city of Trabzon, for instance, pressures on queer people have forced them almost into invisibility, despite the emergence of Halil İbrahim Dinçdağ, the first openly gay football referee in Turkey. Talking about or asking questions about queer people is considered taboo and against Islam and tradition (Bozok, 2013, 224–25). Previous studies have shown that Turkish women have a more tolerant attitude towards gays and lesbians than

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men. A survey revealed that women rated problems with the opposite sex as a decisive reason for entering same-sex relations, much more than did men. Also, the term ‘lesbian’ yielded a significantly lower negative mean score than did the terms ‘gay’ and ‘homosexual’ (Çirakoğlu, 2006, 293–302). In North Macedonia, a survey conducted in 2009 revealed that 91.6 percent of the population disapproved of same-sex relations; only 7.7 percent of men and 9.2 percent of women accepted homosexuality. A total 33.7 percent shared the conviction that same-sex relations should be considered a criminal offence, and 48 percent considered homosexuality a disease. Influenced not only by public opinion but also by the Orthodox Church, the government opposed the legalisation of same-sex marriages under the Law Against Discrimination in 2015, and attempted to define marriage in the constitution as a union between a man and woman only. An additional constitutional amendment intended to make civil union legislation for same-sex couples more difficult (Dimitrov & Kolozova, 2012, 155–75; Gjurovska, 2015, 144; ILGA Europe, 2016, 110–13). If we investigate the reasons for this massive rejection of alternative sexualities, we find that besides deep-rooted patriarchy, the Orthodox Church and Islamic authorities have a decisive influence on public opinion as well as on LGBTIQ legislation. In Islamic culture, like in the other monotheistic religions, all kinds of sexuality other than heterosexuality are considered shameful and sinful (Polat et  al., 2005, 389–92). The impact of action by Islamic religious institutions to oust homosexuality depends very much on local conditions. Pride parades have been held in Istanbul and Ankara almost every year, but were not possible in Baku or Sarajevo until 2018–2019. Official Orthodox theology unambiguously interprets homosexuality as a sin, illness, disorder, and a form of addiction similar to drug abuse, as well as unnatural, sacrilegious, and destructive. The Orthodox churches in the region have attempted to outdo each other in preventing LGBTIQ persons from gaining equal rights. In Serbia, the Orthodox Church together with skinheads, hooligans, and adherents of ultra-right groups, is the most prominent opponent of LGBTIQ rights and regards the issues advocated by the LGBTIQ community as imposed from abroad, i.e. Western Europe and the United States. Drawing attention to the discrimination of gays and lesbians is perceived by some as an attempt to advertise homosexuality and force the Westernisation of Eastern Orthodox societies and cultures (Jovanović, 2013, 81–87) – an attitude shared by the Romanian (Stan & Turcescu, 2007, 178–79) and other Orthodox churches. In recent years, the Orthodox churches have asserted such a strong influence on the population that it is practically impossible to oppose their views in the political arena. Although clerics continually emphasise that they will not get politically involved concerning ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities, they often publicly present positions ranging from intolerance to hostility. Even liberal Orthodox clergy describe homosexuality as against the will of God and therefore to be condemned (Stöber, 2013b). Public manifestations such as Pride parades have become the foci of declarations of intolerance and aversion.

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Pride Parades The history of Pride parades and the circumstances under which they have been held is the best indicator for the status of LGBTIQ people and of the intensity of patriarchy in a country. One of the first attempts to organise a Pride parade in the region was in the Serbian capital Belgrade in 2001. The parade was violently attacked and disrupted by groups of football fans and members of extremist nationalist organisations. Many officials excused the attackers for their actions, saying that parading ‘immorality’ on the streets of Belgrade was a provocation to Serbian men whose reactions were natural and predictable. Fear and the threat of violence, as well as ideological condemnation articulated by the Orthodox Church, discouraged activists from staging a Pride march in the following years. Against this backdrop, the government banned the second attempt to hold a parade in the autumn of 2009 (Kahlina, 2014; Gould & Moe, 2015, 278–79). The next attempt in 2010 was finally supported by political institutions and the government. Some 6000 members of the extreme right and/or football hooligans tried to attack the approximately 1000 activists who joined the parade. This time, they were defended by 5000 policemen. Extreme violence erupted and over 100 police officers were hospitalised. The marches planned for 2011 and 2012 again were banned (Duhaček, 2015, 112–15) until, eventually, the 2014 Pride was realised after intensive public debate (Rosić Ilić, 2015, 132). The history of Pride parades in Belgrade demonstrates the sensitivities surrounding these events. Attempts to organise a Pride celebration in Istanbul date back as far as 1993. In July of that year, the Istanbul city government intervened to stop a group of lesbians and gay men from organising an event. In the week prior to the celebration, the organisers received calls from fundamentalist groups threatening to bomb the cinema where the activities were scheduled to take place. On the opening day, the mayor of Istanbul faxed hotels in the city instructing them not to accept foreign participants in the celebration. The next day, Turkish authorities arrested and expelled foreign delegates who were there to take part. In addition, three Turkish men were arrested for their efforts to organise the event (Ayar & Elmas, 2000, 276). However, since 2003 Pride parades have been conducted in Istanbul almost without interruption. Apart from 2019, the only exception was in 2015 when the authorities at short notice banned the parade planned for 28 June, citing overlap with Ramadan. For the first time in twelve years, the march was violently disrupted. Police officers fired tear gas, water cannons, and rubber bullets at LGBTIQ activists and supporters. Officers also failed to protect marchers from attacks by members of the public who opposed the event (ILGA Europe, 2016, 164–67). Thus, in terms of the history of Pride parades, Istanbul is the most progressive city in the region with celebrations being held there since 1993 – even earlier than in Athens and Bucharest where first marches took place in 2005. In Bucharest, the first planned parade was cancelled in 2004. Nationalists and the powerful Romanian Orthodox Church were its strongest opponents (Touma, 2017). In May 2005, the first week-long gay festival in Romania culminated in a colourful Pride march

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through downtown Bucharest. The event was organized by Accept, a non-profit organisation promoting the rights of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transsexuals. Although the Bucharest mayor initially opposed the parade, Romania’s president and the minister of justice endorsed it. The event attracted some sympathetic participants, as well as small protests by groups like the New Right, a neo-Nazi organisation that claimed to be acting in the name of ‘Christianity’ (Stan & Turcescu, 2007, 180). A wave of Pride parades, though not all of them successful, premiered in 2012 and 2013 after a queer festival in Sarajevo failed in 2008 (Lakic, 2017). The first Pride parade in Tirana was held in May 2012, accompanied by smoke bombs thrown in the direction of activists. The first-ever Pride week in Skopje, North Macedonia, was organised between 22 and 27 June 2013. Although the organisers repeatedly stated that they were not staging a march but a week with indoor debates, public lectures, and screenings, the first calls for a counter-gay parade came right after the announcement (Koteska, 2015, 53). The first Montenegrin Pride parade was held in Podgorica in 2013 and was marred by violent clashes with hooligans. The second Pride in 2014, however, was held almost without incident (Vuković & Ljumović, 2015, 152–60). In all three South Caucasian countries where cultural and political life is viewed in the light of heterosexuality, ethnicity, and confession, being a member of any given minority is automatically considered an estrangement on the part of the individual. A person who does not wish to conceal his or her homosexual identity has few chances to succeed in their public, academic, or political career (Lejava, 2013). The climate in which Pride parades are conducted is therefore very hostile. This is documented by extremely serious incidents in Tbilisi, Yerevan, and Baku in March and May of 2012. On 17 May 2012, a march marking the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO) was held for the first time in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. The participants had covered only part of the planned route when 30,000 counter-demonstrators, mainly organised by the Orthodox Parents’ Union, stopped the approximately 100 marchers. Buses used by the participants were besieged and crowds smashed windows, threw stones, and tried to pull people from the vehicles. Later, the Orthodox Patriarchy ‘congratulated the Georgian people on their victory’ (Stöber, 2013b; Aghdgomelashvili, 2015, 11–14; Shahnazaryan et al., 2016, 19–22). In Armenia, PINK Armenia and the Women’s Resource Centre intended to hold a Diversity march in Yerevan in 2012, which they had planned for two years. The internationally recognised World Day for Cultural Diversity on 21 May served as the occasion, and the organisers emphasised that the parade would celebrate diversity in every sense of the word. Among the public, however, diversity was widely equated with homosexuality. The Diversity march could only take place under police protection. Numerous counter-demonstrators sang patriotic and nationalistic songs. During the march, they spat on, cursed at, and threatened the participants (Stöber, 2013a). Meanwhile, Azerbaijan was the centre of international attention in the context of the Eurovision Song Contest held in Baku in May 2012. International media featured special reports on LGBTIQ people who spoke publicly about their sexual

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identity. Like in Yerevan, a Diversity march was organised for 21 May on the initiative of several NGOs, which went ahead against a background of aggressive protests by opponents. Despite police protection, the marchers were forced to halt the event and seek shelter in a nearby building (Lejava, 2013). To conclude, it is evident that most of the Balkan countries are a little ahead of the South Caucasus in terms of limiting the discrimination of LGBTIQ people and conducting Pride or Diversity events. After a peaceful Pride parade was held in Pristina in 2017 and in Sarajevo for the first time in 2019, Pride marches have been held in every Balkan capital. This has not yet been the case in the South Caucasus where resistance and animosity on the part of the public and religious institutions are still very strong. Moreover, debates on the legalisation of same-sex cohabitation or even same-sex marriage are suppressed. The following section looks at demographic developments and marriage arrangements in general, and asks whether they display additional indicators of a still close-knit patriarchal world.

Demography and Marriage Arrangements The demographic behaviour of the population in late socialism was characterised by some peculiarities emerging from the socioeconomic context of the socialist state which was in favour of high fertility rates within valid marriages. Therefore, fertility was above the replacement level and was sustained by pronatalist measures and incentives for marriage. It was relatively easy to establish a household, even for students. Thus, before 1989 transition to adulthood was marked by early and almost universal marriage, divorce was rare, legal abortions limited, and modern contraception not encouraged (Hărăguş & Oaneş, 2009, 45). Marriage behaviour and demographic developments in socialism deviated in some respects from those in Western and Northwestern Europe where from the 1960s age at first marriage began to rise, the relative numbers of marriages decreased, and fertility rates started to drop under replacement level. Pronatalist measures, if any, were not enforced, family planning was supported, and abortion legalised. The spread of modern contraceptives, especially the contraceptive pill, had a direct impact on the norms governing sexual and reproductive behaviour and, consequently, on demographic trends. Its introduction was the main cause of the Second Demographic Transition (SDT)6 which involves changes in contraceptive ­behaviour, 6  The First Demographic Transition (FDT), presented in an article by Ron Lesthaeghe and Dirk van de Kaa (Lesthaeghe & Van de Kaa, 1986), consists in a shift from high to low death and birth rates. Every country in the world, sooner or later, experiences this shift, which began in Western Europe in the middle of the eighteenth century. Before the transition, fertility was high, but then life expectancy began to rise. In a second phase, fertility started to decline (in Western Europe in the middle of the nineteenth century) and as a result population growth gradually began to slow. In the third and final stage, a new equilibrium was established as both birth and death rates settled at the same low level and a young population was replaced by an ageing one (Puschmann & Matthijs, 2015, 122–23).

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fertility levels and patterns, and the timing, frequency, type, and stability of unions (ibid., 53). By 1975, the marriage rate was going down across Western Europe north of the Alps and the Pyrenees, caused by the postponement of marriage, informal cohabitation, and the tendency to live alone. A special variant of singlehood is the delinking of parenting from pairing, leading to a rise in the number of single parents (Therborn, 2006, 194). After 1989, sharp and rapid changes took place in demographic behaviours, also in some of the previously socialist countries. Thus, for instance, the average age of women at first birth in urban Romania increased from 23.7 in 1990 to 26.6 years in 2006. Couples started to postpone marriage and marriage rates declined. However, marriage postponement has not entirely translated into the postponement of first births; the interval between marriage and first birth has narrowed because pregnancy has implied marriage immediately before or after birth. These trends, except the latter, are in line with those in Western European countries (Hărăguş & Oaneş, 2009, 45–47). Does this mean that the former socialist countries are shifting into the SDT? This question will be addressed next. The subsequent section will discuss sexual life and the last in this chapter will analyse contraception and gender-specific abortion in some of the countries under investigation.

On the Way to the Second Demographic Transition? The SDT evolved in Northwestern Europe and gradually spread from there to other parts of the globe. One of its main characteristics is sub-replacement fertility, described as the outcome of individual choices. Whereas birth control during the FDT was mainly practised through withdrawal and rhythm methods, more reliable means of family planning based on the use of contraceptives such as the pill and the IUD were increasingly used during the SDT. As contraception became safer, the ties between sex and reproduction became weaker (Puschmann & Matthijs, 2015, 125–26). In terms of nuptiality, the SDT also represents a clear turning point. During the FDT, people married more often and at a younger age; in the SDT, marriage is increasingly delayed and more and more people never marry. Moreover, divorce – rare during the FDT – is a common occurrence based on the principle that ‘a good divorce is better than a bad marriage’. Simultaneously, cohabitation has become popular, first as a prelude to marriage, then as a substitute, and finally as a postlude of matrimony. The next development disentangled the link between marriage and reproduction. From the 1980s on, a large increase in the numbers of births out of wedlock was observed in many Northwest European countries, illustrating that for many young people marriage has become completely obsolete (ibid.). Turning to the Balkans and South Caucasus, most countries have followed the Western European trend in relation to delayed marriage, also because establishing households has become more difficult. Couples marry later in life. In 2014, the average age at marriage in Bosnia and Herzegovina was 26 years for women and 30 for

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men (USAID, 2016, 18). In Bulgaria, the average age at first marriage in 2005 was already close to that of Bosnia and Herzegovina one decade later. The rise in the average age seems to have developed in parallel for both genders, increasing by four to five years over the last 15 years for men as well as women. Nevertheless, entry into marriage is still almost universal (Koytcheva & Philipov, 2008, 375) and it is very rare for someone to remain unmarried for his or her whole life. Compared to Northwest European countries with their low marriage rates and high rates of divorce, marriage rates in the region remain comparatively high and divorce is low. The rate of marriage is particularly high in Albania, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Turkey. In countries such as Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, divorce hardly occurs. Marriage and divorce rates in Romania (Băban, 2000, 235, FN 17; Robila, 2004, 144–45) are closer to these countries than to the European average. In contrast, Bulgaria is more or less within the European range (Vassilev, 1999, 71–74).7 A significant number of births out of wedlock has been registered only in a few countries in the region; in particular, Azerbaijan, Kosovo, and Turkey rank very low.8 Romania is around the European average (Puschmann & Matthijs, 2015, 126). Bulgaria, however, forms almost a European exception, with a rate of 58.5 in 2018. Births out of wedlock are related to cohabitation rates. Whereas Romania ranks rather low in European comparison, in Bulgaria cohabitation as an alternative model to traditional marriage began to increase around 2000. Recently, Bulgaria was the only country in the region to come close to the European average – slightly below 10 percent of the population. This can be explained by the spread of de facto or ‘test’ marriages. Most cohabitees are under 29 years of age. According to studies conducted between 1997 and 2008, nearly all married women claimed that they had lived with their future husbands before the wedding (Vassilev, 1999, 71–74; Staykova, 2004, 166–67; Koytcheva & Philipov, 2008, 366–67, 376). This might explain the relatively high cohabitation rate in Bulgaria, but not why it represents a remarkable exception among the Eurasia Minor countries. Single-parent families are rather unusual in the region but have become more widespread with increasing divorce rates. Thus, this kind of arrangement is often not the result of a considered personal choice. Around 10 to 15 percent of households in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Romania – in Moldova slightly more  – are single-parent households, among which the share of single mothers ranges between 70 and 85 percent. This group represents one of the most vulnerable in the Western Balkans and suffers from both economic deprivation and an often dramatic lack of social and institutional support. In the still very patriarchal societies of the Western Balkans, single mothers are expected to make sacrifices for

 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/population-demography-migration-projections/marriages-anddivorces-data; https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/population-demography-migration-projections/ marriages-and-divorces-data/main-tables (accessed on 15 July 2020). 8  https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/demo_fagec/default/table?lang=en (accessed on 15 July 2020). 7

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their children as they are widely disrespected (Bodrug-Lungu, 2004, 180; Blagojević, 2012, 220–4, 226–8; Iancu, 2012, 190–9). Qualitative as well as quantitative data raise considerable doubt about the expansion of the SDT in the region. Nuptiality has remained comparatively high, divorce and cohabitation rates are low, as are births out of wedlock. These results do not indicate the kind of deep social and attitudinal changes that are supposed to be features of the SDT.  Bulgaria is the only country to be moving in this direction. However, Elena Koytcheva and Dimiter Philipov (2008) have questioned whether the SDT theory fully applies to Bulgaria. After 1990, tendencies towards ideological pluralisation  – including desecularisation  – and individualisation emerged. Particularly the younger cohorts of society are strongly oriented towards Western experiences and lifestyles, and many work or study abroad. For Romania, Cornelia Mureşan (2007) has come to the conclusion that most of the threshold levels indicating the onset of transition were reached during the 1990s, however a few have not yet been achieved: marriage is still stable, cohabitation marginal, ultimate celibacy remains rare, and reliance on modern contraception is still not common practice. Thus, concludes Mureşan, while the SDT has begun, it is still at an early stage. The overall demographic realities indicate that in some countries such as Bulgaria and Romania ‘Europeanisation’ is underway, but the majority still follow traditional paths. Before we turn to the issues of contraception and abortion, a few remarks on sexual life, premarital sex, and virginity seem appropriate here. They will reveal the prevalence of rather conservative attitudes toward sexuality.

Sexual Life Many young women in the region, more frequently in non-urban contexts, start their sexual life at marriage or marry the partner with whom they had sexual intercourse the first time. As we have seen, cohabitation is still rare and in most cases leads to marriage between the cohabiting partners. This section begins with some reflections on the preservation of female virginity until marriage, premarital sex, and marital sexual life. In the light of a higher average age at marriage, meanwhile approximately 25 to 26 years for women, it has become harder to preserve virginity as a norm. A century ago, the average age of women at marriage in the region was around ten years lower, at an age when many young women today start their sexual activity. In most countries of Western Europe and the United States, the norm of virginity at marriage is considered outdated, but in some countries of the Balkans it is still upheld and women face numerous problems if not a virgin upon marriage. The ideal of female virginity continues to be held in high esteem across the region. According to a 2004 survey conducted in Georgia, 98 percent of respondents thought that a woman should remain a virgin until marriage, while only 47 percent thought that a man

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should not have sexual intercourse before marriage. Another survey showed that 89 percent of young women and 87 percent of young men agreed with the statement: ‘A woman should be a virgin when she marries’ (Kharchilava & Javakhishvili, 2010, 84). In Kosovo, young women are strongly advised to remain virgins until their wedding day. A recent survey explored perceptions of virginity among students and asked an almost equal number of young men and women whether it was advantageous to be a virgin. Of 530 respondents, 350 answered positively. Asked whether virginity was a prerequisite for marriage, 334 students responded positively. The answers to both questions showed no significant divergence on the basis of gender. Another question addressed hymen reconstruction, or hymenoplasty. A total 356 respondents of both sexes rejected the idea of false virginity, while 65, or 12.5 percent, thought hymenoplasty advisable (Fejza, 2015, 264). In Turkey, obstetricians and gynaecologists conduct virginity tests as well as hymen reconstruction. A survey asked why and how medical doctors are involved in testing virginity or in hymenoplasty, but it is almost impossible to gather any type of data about the consumers of these services. It seems that highly educated women or with high-income jobs do not consult physicians in this regard. Technically, the most successful virginity surgery should take place right before the wedding night. If the stitches, which will cause the bleeding, stay in place too long, they may not cause any bleeding at all (Cindoğlu, 2000, 215–26). Policies in the former socialist countries discouraged premarital sex as socially undesirable (Ibroscheva, 2013, 38). Of course, warnings against premarital sex in the socialist era as well as in the post-socialist decades, especially by religious institutions, did not necessarily mean that caution was observed. Figures on premarital sex, however, are difficult to obtain. Data on the sexual behaviour of youth in the various countries of the region are available but should be treated with caution, as respondents may not always be truthful about intimate behaviour. Nevertheless, there is an evident tendency towards a lower age of sexual debut for young men and women in most of the countries since the early 1990s. An exception that proves the rule is Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the sexual debut of youth, independent of religious affiliation, did not change until the period 2007–2009 and was relatively late, around 17  years for men and 18 for women on average (Hadžimehmedović et al., 2011, 74–77). This data resembles Romanian data gathered in approximately the same period (see below). A large-scale survey among urban high school students in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Sarajevo), North Macedonia (Skopje), Serbia (Belgrade), and Montenegro (Podgorica) in 2004 provides additional indicators. The students were 12 to 24 years old (Delva, 2007, 310–15). Results showed that more boys (41.3 percent) than girls (20.8 percent) were already sexually active at the time of the survey. No particular religion or type of school was found to be associated with sexual activity. Bosnia and Herzegovina had the highest proportion of sexually active males and the lowest percentage of sexually active females. Other results indicated that the mean age at sexual debut differed significantly for boys and girls, with 15.5 years for boys and 16.3 years for girls, even after adjusting for age and country. The study concluded

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that there was no evidence that sexual debut was earlier in the Balkans than in other parts of Europe, nor that the proportion of sexually active youth was higher. However, due to declining condom use that is not compensated for by other contraceptive methods, young women in the Balkans seem to be more exposed to the risk of pregnancy than their counterparts in some of the Western European countries (ibid., 310–15). Various surveys from Romania show that in the two decades between 1993 and 2014, the age at first sexual intercourse for men and women decreased by 2.5 years. An early poll carried out in 1993 documented that 58 percent of women aged between 15 and 24 years reported that they had never sexual intercourse (Baban, 1999, 219). The median age of first intercourse for all Romanian women was 20.2 years – only 2.4 months lower than the median age of marriage, 20.4 years (Băban, 2000, 241). Six years later, the Romanian Reproductive Health Survey (1999) established that the median age at first sexual intercourse was 19.8 years for women and 17.9 years for men (Rada, 2014, 3), constituting an average of 18.8 years. A questionnaire-based survey developed by the Institute of Anthropology at the Romanian Academy of Sciences concluded that the mean age for the start of sexual activity was 17.7 years. Overall, adolescents born after 1994 seemed to begin sexual activity earlier than previous cohorts and at a similar age to young people in most European countries: males at 17.2 years and females at 18.2 years (Iordanescu et al., 2015, 759–60). What we can deduct from these case studies is that the sexual debut of young men and women in the Balkans has come very close to the European norm. However, it is difficult to obtain reliable statistical evidence. One of the questions that cannot be answered is whether this earlier debut has an impact on nuptiality, divorce, births out of wedlock, or cohabitation arrangements in the later life course. Interestingly, there is a correlation between sexual debut and the frequency of church attendance in Romania – at least according to a survey conducted in 2004. People who regularly attended Orthodox services were less sexually active before marriage. Of the respondents who did not attend church at all, 24.6 percent said they had begun their sexual life ‘early’, while only 20 percent of those who went to church frequently answered the same; 24.1 percent of the latter responded that they had postponed the moment of sexual initiation. These responses reflect the moral norms promoted by the Orthodox Church which encourages the idea that first sexual intercourse should take place in the context of marriage (Oaneş 2007, 65, 69–73). This relationship between sexual behaviour and church attendance, however, is hardly mirrored when it comes to contraception and abortion.

Contraception and Abortion After 1989, new family policies had to be developed in the former socialist countries to cope with the challenges of post-socialist conditions. Knowledge regarding sexuality was poor. This section will investigate the inadequate entry of modern

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contraception into sexual life, and abortion as one of the most important means of family planning in half a dozen of countries of the region. The discussion of abortion as family planning will include the overall very rare but documented practice of the abortion of female foeti. Almost twice as many women in the post-socialist countries than in the EU did not use contraception in the early 2000s. This resulted in the adoption of alternative practices, a trend that was reflected in high abortion rates. After contraceptives became widely obtainable – though were relatively expensive – little or nothing was done to change existing habits (Kaser, 2008, 251). Three examples serve to illustrate the situation; the first is from post-socialist Albania, and the other two from Greece and Turkey. In Albania, various forms of modern contraception are now available from doctors on prescription, including the pill, IUDs, and injectables, but motivation to use contraceptives remains low – especially men’s acceptance of condoms. Withdrawal remains the most commonly practised method, backed by abortion. In 2002, some 8 percent of married Albanian women used a modern contraceptive, while 67 percent relied on withdrawal – many believing it was more effective at preventing pregnancy than modern methods. By 2009, the pill, condoms, and injectables were offered free of charge at public health facilities, and the pill, condoms, and emergency contraception were also available at subsidised prices through social marketing programmes. Despite these efforts, the 2008–09 Demographic and Health Survey found only a slight increase in the use of modern methods over the previous seven years; only 11 percent of married women used them in 2009, making Albania one of the countries with the lowest use of modern contraceptives in Europe (Kragelund Nielsen et al., 2012, 158–59, 163). Likewise in Greece, albeit without a socialist history, modern contraceptive methods are used only on a limited scale and many people continue to rely on traditional methods of birth control. A survey conducted among medical students at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in 2008 showed that the pattern of contraceptive use during the last year of study was similar to that observed in the general population. According to a survey published in 2008, only 4.8 percent of women of reproductive age used the pill and 3.7 percent an IUD.  Whereas condoms represented the most commonly used method (33.9 percent), a considerable proportion of Greek women relied on ineffective methods such as coitus interruptus (28.8 percent); 23.8 percent used no contraception at all (Dinas, 2008, 81). In Turkey, among 922 randomly selected sexually active women of reproductive age, knowledge of at least one contraceptive method was universal in the second half of the 1990s. IUDs and withdrawal were the most commonly used methods. About 53 percent of women used modern methods, 24 percent relied on traditional methods (coitus interruptus and periodic abstinence), and 23 percent used no contraceptive. Turkey has one of the highest rates of the use of coitus interruptus to protect from pregnancy in the world (Kaser, 2008, 255). The gathered data is very diverse over time, methodology and survey samples can hardly be compared to each other and do not permit conclusions about general trends. Nevertheless, it can be tentatively stated that the region does not have a firm or long tradition of contraceptive use. Reasons for this include the pronatalist

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policies of most of the socialist governments and of Turkey, though these are no longer in effect, as well as male-dominated sexual relations. For most people, fertility control consists of a combination of the traditional methods of coitus interruptus and abortion, or no prevention at all. Nonetheless, birth rates are declining everywhere in the region and especially in the Balkans. In comparison, both fertility and abortion rates have remained relatively high in the South Caucasus countries, leading to the conclusion that family planning is less developed. With regard to abortion, socialist Romania as well as Bulgaria observed a strict pronatalist and antiabortion policy. This is why, differently from other post-socialist countries, Romanian women perceived their newly recovered right to abortion  – legalised immediately after the 1989 revolution – as a sign of liberation. Thus in 1997, 150 legal abortions were recorded per 100 live births. After this first ‘enthusiasm’ for abortion, numbers decreased significantly (Baban, 1999, 201; Roman, 2001, 57). Meanwhile, the Romanian figure of 20.62 abortions per 1000 women in 2014 compares closely to data from other countries of the region: Georgia 39.05 in 2015, Bulgaria 24.50 in 2014, Moldova 21.47 in 2015, and Armenia 19.83 in 2014. Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Turkey report rates between only two and four. In a European comparison, abortion rates in most of these countries are high. For example, the abortion rate in Austria was only 1.27 in 2005.9 The high abortion rates recorded in some of the Orthodox countries relativise the impact of the Orthodox Church on the sexual lives of believers. The Greek Orthodox Church, to which the vast majority of Greeks belong, considers abortion a grave sin akin to murder. According to church doctrine, a woman who has had an abortion cannot receive the sacrament of Holy Communion until immediately before her death. In practice, however, the Orthodox Church has never been a staunch or vocal opponent of abortion (Georges, 1996, 516). The Romanian Orthodox Church, meanwhile, condemns the pill and considers its use no less sinful than abortion itself. Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church does not distinguish between degrees of sinfulness and therefore fails to differentiate between the prevention of conception through the use of contraceptives and abortion of an already conceived foetus (Stan & Turcescu, 2007, 186). The economic hardship of the transition period resulted in a rapid decrease in fertility rates. In Romania, for instance, the fertility rate declined from 1.83 births per woman in 1990 to 1.25  in 2011, and is currently one of the lowest in the EU. Reasons are the legalisation of abortion, increased use of contraception, poverty, and uncertainty about the future (Massino & Popa, 2015, 180). The fertility drop in Bulgaria has been even sharper, namely from 2.1 births per woman to 1.1 in 1997 – within approximately one decade. This drop is largely due to the postponement of first birth (Koytcheva & Philipov, 2008, 363–64). The fertility rate in North

 http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/wrjp336abrate2.html (accessed on 15 July 2020).

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Macedonia dropped from 2.7 in 2000 to 1.5 in 2010 (Gjurovska, 2015, 135). In the South Caucasus, rates remain high, at 1.97 in Azerbaijan and Georgia in 2014.10 While abortion is still considered an appropriate means of fertility regulation prenatal sex selection at the expense of the female foetus definitely reflects a patriarchal bias in family planning. Selection occurs in almost half of the countries in the region: Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Every year, due to prenatal sex selection, 1.5 million girls around the world are missing at birth. While prenatal sex selection was once thought to be unique to India and China, the practice now exists in other countries in South and East Asia, as well as in the Balkans and South Caucasus. Under normal circumstances, about 102 to 107 male babies are born for every 100 females. However, the sex ratios at birth for China, Azerbaijan, and Armenia exceed this value considerably (116 to 118 boys), whereas the ratios for Georgia, Montenegro, and Albania are moderately high (111 to 112) (Gilles & Feldman-Jacobs, 2012, 1–2). By contrast, the EU average was 105 newborn boys in 2010.11 Albania is the westernmost country in which the sex ratio at birth rose above 110 over the last two decades. Interestingly, Albania seems to be part of a larger regional cluster of high-ratio countries in the western Balkans, encompassing Montenegro, Kosovo, and parts of North Macedonia inhabited primarily by Albanians. In the South Caucasus, male birth prevalence briefly reached levels as high as 118 during the previous three decades. Statistics from all three South Caucasus countries converge to provide ample evidence of high levels from the 1990s onwards. The rise in male births seems to have immediately followed the collapse of the Soviet Union and was especially rapid in Azerbaijan and Armenia, where the ratio already reached 115 to 120 male births per 100 female births during the late 1990s. Statistical evidence is more fragmentary for Georgia, but the proportion of male births in this country most probably remains as high as for its neighbour countries (Guilmoto, 2013, 14–15). The most likely cause of an excess of male births resulting from a preference for sons is obviously selectively induced abortion (Meslé et al., 2007, 74–76, 79, 82, 86). Evidence-based data suggests that a preference for sons is widespread in societies with strongly emphasised gender inequality, and where a son is considered an asset as opposed to a daughter who represents a burden. Boys have been favoured due to a series of socio-cultural and economic considerations, such as the continuation of the family lineage, the necessity to protect family honour, the presence of a male required by certain religious and traditional rites, and most importantly, the assurance of support for elderly parents (Hayruni, 2014, 44–45; Aliyeva, 2015, 96–106).

 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/population-demography-migration-projections/births-fertitily-data (accessed on 15 July 2020). 11  https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/population-demography-migration-projections/populationdata. Data refers to the period 2006–2010 (accessed on 15 July 2020). 10

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Gender-biased prenatal sex selection serves as the last example of a long account which documents that the dominant gender ideologies and values that shape gender relations are noticeably traditional, increasingly religiously loaded, and still infiltrated by deeply entrenched patriarchal norms. This chapter has investigated the realia of gender relations, femininities, and masculinities reflected in statistical data, qualitative interviews, and textual discourses. Taking patriarchal landscapes in Europe around 1900 as a departure point, sketched on the basis of quantifiable data, the chapter has approached the years around 2000. Data from this period shows that Eurasia Minor constituted, and still represents, a European core region of patriarchal ideology and reality. This will not change overnight. The section ‘Being Man and Woman – Ideologies and Discourses’ has analysed not only the construction of gender relations, including a special emphasis on religions, but also discussed gender constructions in textbooks. Most of the available empirical material discussed here provides evidence of traditionalism inherent in gender relations due to deeply ingrained patriarchal norms and ideologies. These findings dovetail with hostility against feminist movements that reject ideals of womanhood emphasising piety, motherhood, submissiveness, and sexually chastity. Important ingredients of hegemonic masculinity in the region are a tough character, a predisposition to violence, a tendency to oppress wives, the idea of male superiority over women, and the quality of being strong and protective. Moreover, an inclination to homophobia, having unprotected sex, and a tendency to favour male offspring. This regional hegemonic masculinity manifests itself in various regional and local forms such as the blatant frajer, the semi-criminal lawbreaker, the neo-Muslim, the secular Kemalist, the homosocial friend, and the loser of post-socialist transformation; in all cases, this man is a pronounced heterosexual. Some demographic developments and marriage arrangements are slowly becoming aligned with Western patterns: age at marriage, and fertility, for instance. Other components seem to have remained stable: universality of marriage, low instances of cohabitation – usually resulting in marriage – and increasing but still remarkably low divorce rates. Although the age of sexual debut has steadily decreased, though starting from a high level, female virginity at marriage is still highly valued in some countries. Sexual life has also been characterised by the relatively seldom use of modern contraception, and high abortion rates in the 1990s. Abortion rates have remained high in the South Caucasus where, as in some parts of the Western Balkans, gender-biased prenatal sex selection is widespread. Although much of this data indicates the prevalence of traditionalist attitudes, it should prevent us, a quarter of a century after the turning point of 1989–1991, of establishing with certainty an ongoing, comprehensive, and intensifying process of retraditionalisation with regard to the realia of gender relations in post-socialist societies. Undoubtedly, retraditionalisation has occurred, but what we see is also the continuation of socialist patterns as well as an alignment to western attitudes. In Islamic countries such as Turkey and Azerbaijan, westernising forces have been rigorously questioned by the reinforced impact of Islam on society. This impact has been less remarkable in countries such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, and Kosovo. In countries where Orthodoxy prevails, moreover, the impact of religion on

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visual discourse in the public sphere cannot be overseen; but its impact on the actual sexual and reproductive behaviour of the religious communities, and on the social construction of femininities and masculinities, remains low. My intention in this chapter has been to capture the realia of gender relations, femininities and masculinities, under the conditions of patriarchy. Some of these realia are being questioned and rejected by women, as is possibly indicated by an increase in male violence in marriage, and by the gradual recovery of women’s movements after almost two decades of post-socialist agony. Some aspects of realia are – with less success – being questioned by LGBTIQ people. However, there are many more actors at work than ordinary men and women, especially strong socio-­ political forces such as religions, political parties, and various unions and associations which are fighting to reaffirm and maintain the conservative social order, but also for utopian change. The media, however, have co-created realia as well as femininities and masculinities in the digital age by visually constructing the utopia of idealised femininities and masculinities in advertising, TV shows, soap operas, feature films, fashion journals, and all kinds of online media. Before the question can be addressed of whether they confirm or contradict the realia outlined above, and whether they update realia or contribute to the rearrangement of prevailing femininities and masculinities, we should take a look behind the scenes and study how the world of glamour works.

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Chapter 4

Producers, Agents, and Transmitters

Abstract  The main purpose of this chapter is to shed some light on the mechanisms involved in the creation of utopian views of femininities and masculinities as well as on their producers, agents, and transmitters. Its aim is to provide answers to the question of whether the originally Western utopian views and visual ideals represented in images produced by the media are somehow linked to the conservative-­ patriarchal realia described in the previous chapter. The chapter opens with a look at the changing media landscape and its commercialisation, including the use of sexualised images of women. The second section will concentrate on the advertising industry and the emergence of the Internet as the second most important advertising medium after television. The textile and clothing industry, tackled in the third section, calls for special attention because this low-wage industrial sector is especially strong in countries such as Turkey and Bulgaria. In contrast, the media outlets of non-commercial religious institutions have become conservative key ‘moral agents’ and players in the visualisation business, and are among those seeking to preserve traditional, pre-socialist images of femininity and masculinity. A discussion on the role of religious media as actors with immaterial ambitions closes this chapter. The fall of the socialist regimes resulted in an abrupt change in media communication. In socialist times, the state had organised media channels, and newspapers organised communication between the respective regime and the ‘masses’, and vice versa. From cinema to women’s magazines, censors monitored every part of this communication flow. Alternative information could only be transmitted and received clandestinely. Under these circumstances, it was relatively easy to communicate and manipulate desirable images of realia, as well as to establish ideologically driven images of utopia  – utopian images of the new socialist man and new socialist woman, their characters, and appearance. Every image is somehow related to reality and therefore bears traces of that reality. In socialist times, these traces were ideologized and therefore hardly convincing, as any witness to that era knows. The producers, agents, and transmitters of information in general, and of visual information in particular, included state information bureaus, censorship departments, state-­ employed photographers, state-controlled television and broadcasting stations, and magazines.

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With the onset of post-socialist economic liberalisation, things began to change fundamentally. Interaction between producers and consumers of all kinds of (visual) information was no longer as isolated from the West and international capital as it had been in socialist times. On the contrary, almost all potentially lucrative means of communication were purchased or taken over by powerful Western companies aiming to expand into the new markets. Most of the post-socialist governments tried to keep control of public television and broadcasting. Beyond these state media, information flows became uncontrollable in the first flush of excitement about liberalisation and the lack of legislation. This was just one aspect of the emerging media and communication landscapes. The second concerned the intensification of globalisation resulting from the collapse of socialism and the gradual integration of the former socialist countries into the international economy and worldwide migration flows. Other contributing factors were the revitalisation of religious institutions, the global and unrestricted exchange of information, and the influence of dominant fashion trends. As we know, globalisation processes not only imply the emergence of and absorption into a homogenous global culture, but also the simultaneous strengthening of local and regional characteristics. I believe that the realia and utopia of femininities and masculinities are linked to these contradictory processes, whereby realia overwhelmingly refer to regional and local features and utopia to global phenomenologies of femininity and masculinity. Digital visuality comprises a crucial dimension of change. This also holds true for the third, and for the purpose of this book, fundamental, aspect in connection with the reformulation of masculinities and femininities, namely the communication potential of new media, the intensification and acceleration of information, and especially the tremendous densification of visuality. Eurasia Minor was probably not among the first regions in the world to enter the era of digital visuality, but it meanwhile participates to a high degree in the distribution of information in digital form, with all the attached advantages and disadvantages. The initial purpose of this chapter is to shed some light on the mechanisms involved in the creation of utopian views of femininities and masculinities as well as on their producers, agents, and transmitters who follow the capitalist logic of the pursuit of profit – with the exception of public and religious actors. What are the roles of these agents in the social construction of reality in an era of digital visuality? As already elaborated in the theoretical introduction, images do not have inherent meaning but are given meaning. Images themselves cannot be considered agents in visual discourses. Hence, not images but their uses should be the focus of our attention, shifting the critical perspective from the ‘meaning’ of images – widely assumed to constitute the field of the art historian – to the communicative strategies that inspire the use of images by agents. The second aim of this chapter is to provide answers to the question of whether the originally Western utopian views and visual ideals represented in the images produced by television, social media, magazines, newspapers, and the cinema are somehow linked to the conservative-patriarchal realia described in the previous chapter. Have these images been appropriated in their original (Western) form or

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adapted to regional necessities or priorities? Can and will the mechanisms and actors mentioned above contribute to change the seemingly rigid constructions of femininities and masculinities, consciously or unconsciously, and in which ways? The chapter opens with a look at the changing media landscape in the region, its commercialisation, including the use of sexualised images of women, and at some aspects of processes of media concentration. In addition, individual sections will analyse the role of television, the Internet, magazines, newspapers, and the film industry in the new media markets. The second section will concentrate on the advertising industry and the emergence of the Internet as the second most important advertising medium after television. The textile and clothing industry, tackled in the third section, calls for special attention because this low-wage industrial sector is especially strong in countries such as Turkey and Bulgaria. Producing not only for global fashion brands, regional SMEs are trying to establish a market position by utilising social networks and e-commerce. In contrast, non-commercial religious institutions are conservative, unprogressive and partly hostile to images. However, their media outlets have become key ‘moral agents’ and players in the visualisation business and are among those seeking to maintain traditional, pre-socialist images of femininity and masculinity. A discussion on the role of religious media as actors with immaterial ambitions will close this chapter.

Media Landscapes Although a comprehensive analysis of the development of media markets in Eurasia Minor in the 1990s is yet to be undertaken, the growth in the number of media outlets, the types of media content and products, as well as the diversity of owners, are certainly a direct consequence of the introduction of a neoliberal system. Once, the state and party had controlled broadcast monopolies; now, they were challenged by new media companies. In the post-socialist world, the political realm no longer restricted information flows. Moreover, the establishment of regional media markets in Eurasia Minor connected these countries with the global media environment (Peruško & Popoviç, 2008, 165–66). The liberalisation of media markets in the South Caucasus took longer than in the Balkans, and is still not completed. In Armenia, despite the relatively high number of media outlets, both state and private media suffer from a lack of pluralism, transparency, and professionalism. Many of the private television stations, by far the most important source of information and entertainment, are owned by government-­ friendly business elites who exercise a high degree of self-censorship in order to retain their licenses (Porsughyan, 2011, 2). Similarly, Georgia has a semi-free media environment. Public broadcasting is closely associated with the government and private media remain underdeveloped. The poor advertising climate makes the situation even worse. According to representatives of independent media outlets, businesses prefer to place their advertising with media that do not criticise the government (Robakidze, 2011, 7–11). In Azerbaijan, the ruling Aliyev family controls most

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media, including the TV channels and leading newspapers. Only a few oil companies like BP, and major telecommunications providers, advertise in opposition newspapers; the volume of this advertising amounts to only a few hundred dollars a month (Kazimova, 2011, 4–7). In the Balkans, the transformation from state-controlled, highly centralised media systems to open markets began with the abolition of censorship and inadequate media regulation. Foreign investors were attracted to these markets, which were populated by publics interested in novel media content. Employees were willing to work for low salaries, and the well-developed audiovisual production facilities offered many advantages (Peruško & Popoviç, 2008 169–70). In the case of the press, there were no provisions governing foreign involvement or forbidding the concentration of capital, which resulted in the unregulated privatisation of press enterprises. However, the press boom that occurred in the initial phase of post-­ socialism was soon curbed by the introduction of taxes, an increase in production, print, and distribution costs, and other factors resulting in a decline in readership. Broadcasting was not so easily released from political control. The new political elites continued to control the broadcasting systems in the belief that they had the right to use radio and television to guide the population through the reform process (ibid.). However, the deregulation of state broadcasting monopolies in the late 1980s and early 1990s in combination with digitalisation, as also occurred in Greece and Turkey, led to the radical transformation of the whole media sector. This can be exemplified by the case of Greece, where newspapers in those years faced the biggest challenge in their histories through increasing competition from electronic media. The magazine sector also witnessed a sharp decline in sales; it reacted by closing existing publications and releasing new ones, with minor effect. The broadcasting sector underwent spectacular change – from two public TV channels and four public radio stations in the early 1990s to an overcrowded environment compromising 160 private TV channels and 1200 private radio stations in the early 2000s. The entry of private channels was disastrous for the public broadcasters (Papathanassopoulos, 2007, 94–95) which became, or have remained, financially dependent on the state (Stojarová, 2020, 167). In Eurasia Minor, most of the media are privately owned by local entities, while foreign ownership is rather limited (ibid.). The main investors in the newly emerging radio, television, and press markets were – and are – German, Scandinavian, and Swiss media groups, as well as US-based and US-owned media giants. While US groups have conquered the cinema and audiovisual sector,1 the main investors in television are European and US media firms.2 In many countries, global companies 1  These groups include: Viacom, the Walt Disney Company, AOL Time Warner, Liberty Media, Central European Media Enterprises (CME), and Scandinavian Broadcasting System (SBS) (Peruško & Popoviç, 2008, 171–79). 2  SBS (Viacom), CME (Estée Lauder), MTG (Kinnevik), RTL (Bertelsmann), LARI (Lagardère), HBO (Time Warner), UPC (Liberty Media), as well as the Canal+ group, News Corp, Endemol, and AGB (Peruško & Popoviç, 2008, 171–79).

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are in partnership with regional players in connection with the ownership and control of licences. However, expertise, new technologies, programme modernisation, and programming itself, are determined by the foreign partners who provide the financial input (Peruško & Popoviç, 2008, 171–79). Meanwhile, European-based media groups took control of the press market, especially of regional print media.3 In sharp contrast to the US media model, in which the broadcasting sector is overwhelmingly dominated by commercial broadcasters, mass media in almost all of the former socialist countries correspond to the European model, distinguished on the one hand by a broadcasting industry with a relatively strong public component (public service broadcasters) and a complementary private sector. The predominance of the European model is hardly surprising, since the EU exerted considerable influence over the formal media policies of its candidates (Sparks, 2012, 47–48, 52). The small, fragmented Balkan markets, which do not offer conditions for financially strong and economically viable media, constituted a problem for foreign investors from the very beginning and prevented media companies from offering high-quality products. This had significant consequences for the creation of new visual utopia, primarily of femininities but ultimately also of masculinities, as this constellation opened doors for marketable products with pornographic content, leading to the wholesale adoption of Western genres and formats such as reality TV and lifestyle magazines, as well as tabloid newspapers. A variety of softcore and hardcore pornographic products, which overwhelmingly portrayed women in highly sexualised and commodified ways unprecedented in socialist times, often went beyond simply copying Western media trends as the emerging media cultures took them to new extremes in their local adaptations (Kaneva & Ibroscheva, 2015, 229). Another facet of media transformation was the development of the World Wide Web (WWW) which began to play an increasing role due to its open character that enables the creation and sharing of content among a wide audience through social network pages. Moreover, this hybrid media combines text, video, audio, advertising, and telephone communication, thus providing an opportunity for individual staging (Stanojević, 2012, 370–71). The only barrier to participation in this new media environment was access to computers and later smart phones, which was linked to spending power. For the majority of the population in many countries of the post-socialist world, PCs and mobiles, and/or Internet access were too expensive for mass use until approximately 2010. Measured in terms of the overall population, Internet penetration in Europe in March 2011 was highest in the northern countries, with rates between 85% and 97%. Among the countries with the lowest Internet penetration were Kosovo, with 21%, and Romania, with 35% (Kaser, 2013, 268). By the end of 2017, the share of Internet penetration in the countries of the region was already 65–70%, and partly even higher.4 Two years later, Azerbaijan already 3  Passauer Neue Presse (PNP), Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (WAZ), Axel Springer Verlag, Ringier, Orkla (Peruško & Popoviç, 2008, 171–79). 4  https://www.Internetworldstats.com/stats4.htm; https://www.Internetworldstats.com/stats3.htm#asia (accessed on 15 July 2020).

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had a penetration rate of 76.7%, and Armenia of 77.9%.5 Kosovo, the previous ­latecomer, has become the nation of highest Internet penetration in the Balkans (80%) (Stojarová, 2020, 165). However, from a commercial perspective this impressive percentage is relativised by the size of the country and the small number of users compared to Turkey, where Internet access rose for seven million users only from 2016 to 2017.6 Regarding gender equality and reporting in the media, one of the biggest problems in the first two decades after socialism was the journalistic approach. Although journalists were generally aware of the principles of ‘good practice’ and ethically responsible reporting, the legal and/or conventional framework on gender equality that would have motivated them to follow these principles with respect to gender was still not in place (Lauk, 2008, 193–94). Efforts were made to improve this unfavourable situation. In Bulgaria, for instance, the National Council for Journalistic Ethics Foundation was registered in 2005 but acted without major success (Raycheva, 2009, 166–68). In Bosnia and Herzegovina, a law on gender equality and the Press Code (2011) prohibited the depiction or addressing of women and men in a stereotypical, offensive, or derogatory manner, and introduced the obligation to actively promote gender equality (Hozic, 2008, 146–51, 153–58; USAID, 2016, 41). Despite these regulations, media reporting on women and men has, for the most part, remained gender-blind and continues to promote stereotypes or not to report on women at all (USAID, 2016, 41–42). Another aspect of journalism was the representation of men and women in the media. Newspaper reporters were more likely to be male, although the situation in some Balkan countries was much better in this regard. Around 2010, more than 50% of newspaper journalists in Romania were female, while in Serbia and Montenegro the proportion was above 40 and in Bosnia and Herzegovina above 30%. Some western European countries reported a much worse situation, with the lowest figure in Belgium (6%) (Pajnik, 2012, 103, 105–6). In general, many women in the media still work as assistants rather than in leading positions. Female announcers and presenters are more widely found in television than radio because the media values the screen presence of women to attract audiences. Producers and directors are mostly male, and senior production jobs are also a male domain; in the EU, an average 11% are women. In Romania and Bulgaria, however, the share of female production executives is more than 21%, though gender disparity is evident in these countries, too. The overall European average of 17% in senior broadcast management is inflated by the high proportion of women in these positions in Bulgaria and Romania (ibid., 101–2). Furthermore, a relatively high number of women in the media does not guarantee the adequate representation of women in the news. The Global Media Monitoring project, which periodically examines the representation of men and women in the

 www.statista.com (accessed on 15 July 2020).  https://www.nordeatrade.com/en/explore-new-market/turkey/e-commerce July 2020). 5 6

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media, has confirmed that women are under-represented in news reports across the globe. According to its 2005 report, women were dramatically under-represented as news subjects in all the European countries studied – on average, only 21.6% of news subjects were women. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, like in Serbia and Montenegro, the share was even below 20% (ibid., 103). Following this short overview of the post-socialist media business and the positions of men and women, it is time to take a closer look at four media genres – television, the Internet, newspapers and magazines, and the cinema – ordered according to their market penetration in the region.

Television Television continues to be the commercially most interesting medium in Eurasia Minor because it reaches almost the entire population. This is reflected in data on youth TV consumption reported from Serbia and other Balkan countries. In Serbia, only 4.7% of young people in the age group 19–35 do not watch television, while in Bulgaria the percentage is 5.0, in France 7.4, and in Germany 8.5. However, more significant differences appear if we compare the amount of time spent watching television. In 2012, the Serbian population ranked at the top of the list (316 min/ day) of European countries followed by North Macedonia, Romania, and the EU26 (228  min/day). It is evident that people in the economically more developed European countries dedicate slightly less time on average to watching television due to better access to the Internet and more time spent on the web (Stanojević, 2012, 372). As already indicated above, in the 1990s the global television market went through fundamental changes triggered by a transition from few broadcast networks to multiple cable channels, known as the ‘multi-channel transition’. This shift began in the 1980s and 1990s in the US when the number of television programming outlets increased exponentially to create a much broader range of content, enabling channels to target more specific viewer tastes and preferences. Certain social groups were thus depicted through constructions of masculinity and femininity that diverged from the mainstream – for example, gay men (Lotz, 2014, 29–33). In Eurasia Minor, developments in television were similarly driven by the expansion of the sector as public television stations saw competition from almost countless private  – satellite or cable  – channels. However, this growth did not have a positive collateral effect in terms of providing outlets for more specific viewer preferences, for example in relation to alternative masculinities and femininities, due to the small markets. In Romania, for instance, media evolution in the immediate post-­ socialist period was characterised by a rapid and chaotic increase in the number of stations from two in 1993 to 158 in 2006 (Coman, 2009, 182–84). After the admission of private TV channels in Bulgaria in 1994, the total number of hours of television programming increased from 6500 in 1993 to 400,000 h in 2000 (Ghodsee, 2007, 33).

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In Turkey, state broadcaster Turkish Radio and Television (TRT) held a monopoly until 1990. After the monopoly was lifted, private broadcasters started to import global media products and information technologies advertising Western lifestyles. Action and erotic films – genres avoided by TRT– became popular media products. TRT’s audience share dropped to 25% and its advertising revenues by 50% (Algan, 2003, 170–82). However, this change took place alongside the launch of Islamic TV and radio stations (ibid., 177), which created a kind of counter-public opposed to infiltration by Western lifestyles. These channels were also broadcast in Azerbaijan reflecting Turkish ‘neo-Ottomanist’ foreign policy in the Balkan countries (Balaban, 2015).7 The liberalisation of the media from around 1990 thus produced two antagonistic markets representing hegemonic lifestyles, which were geographically dispersed but related: the porno-chic media market and the veiling culture media market. In the long run, this had a significant impact on the representation of femininities and masculinities. Interestingly, a third intriguing component emerged between the opposite poles of secular and Islamic TV ideology: the Turkish soap opera, which has addressed topics in the context of the Ottoman Empire and its aftermath. Starting production in the late 1980s, Turkey has become the world’s second-largest exporter of television series after the United States. The first tremendous success was Gümüş (Silver), broadcast in Turkey between 2005 and 2007. In the Arabic countries, the series is called Noor (Light), in Romania, Lubire de Argint (Silverlove), and in Slavic countries, Perla (Pearl). In the Arabic world, the series triggered ‘Noor-mania’, with three to four million viewers in Saudi Arabia alone per week. Turkish soap operas have also become extremely successful in the Balkan countries. In Bulgaria, Perla was a blockbuster with two million viewers (out of a population of eight million) per week, and constitutes the most successful TV series ever screened (Kaser, 2013, 11–13). A survey conducted in Albania in 2015 concluded that over 90% of women, independent of religious affiliation, thought that Turkish TV series had positive effects on Albania (Balaban, 2015, 494). One of the secrets of the success of the Turkish soap opera is its moderate position between porno-chic and veiling-chic cultures. It shows wealthy, modern, and secular elites, while at the same time accommodating comfortable and traditional values, simultaneously appealing to various audiences longing for ‘desirable’ status symbols and ‘lost’ values (Frank, 2016, 44–45). There are only very few countries in Eurasia Minor where Turkish soap operas have not found wide reception; among them is Armenia, due to the seemingly irreconcilable hostilities with Turkey. However, the soap opera as such is a relatively new phenomenon in Armenia which only started to broadcast dubbed foreign serials in late 2005 (Keshishian & Mirakyan, 2017, 27). Apart from Turkey, visual mass entertainment also emerged in the Balkan countries and impacted on the visual representation of femininities and masculinities – with a

7  https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2020/07/06/turkey-in-the-balkans-a-march-westward/ (accessed on 15 July 2020).

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tendency towards porno-chic culture. Turbo-folk music8 in Serbia and chalga9 in Bulgaria were commercially hugely successful in domestic TV programming and video production of the 1990s and 2000s, based on a popular combination of softcore pornographic images and folk music with sexualised female stars in the centre of performances. This genre was, and still is, not only popular in its countries of origin but across the Balkans. In the 1980s, the history of Serbian turbo-folk was marked by Fahreta Janić, known under her musical alias Lepa Brena. She opened the gate for a number of young performers who perfected the genre of turbo-folk while popularising a very particular physical appearance: excessively large breasts, a small waist, blonde hair, pouty lips, and glamorous make-up. On the entertainment market, where this specific look sells, the turbo-folk formula was an instant success. The turbo-folk phenomenon set the stage for a new visual aesthetic both in terms of mediated performance and in terms of visualising women’s bodies in spaces previously occupied by a very deliberate absence of women’s physicality and sexuality (Ibroscheva, 2013, 94–95). The idea of producing Bulgarian chalga commercially stems from hard rock fan and sound engineer Mirko Dimitrov who today controls a vast music business. In the 1990s, he invented a formula that exploited the sexual attributes of chalga singers and created music videos in which over-sexed vocalists gyrated to the rhythm with their bodies exposed. The camera tantalised audiences with close-ups of the singers’ silicon breasts and pouty lips as they simulated or blatantly engaged in sexual intercourse. Today, the chalga music business maintains its success by relying on the tested formula of the over-sexed female starlet. Among the so-called ‘tigresses’ of this music empire were sex bomb Andrea, artistic fashion icon Galena, pop princess Cvetlina, and Lola-like Maria. All flaunted their sexual power and were idolised by their fan base, many of whom were young women aspiring to achieve the same look and accompanying rich and glamorous lifestyle widely portrayed by popular media as the everyday life of these pop divas. In addition, they appeared in fashion magazines, gossip columns, and television talk shows to discuss their fashion sense, diets, relationships, and home decorations (Ibroscheva, 2015, 159–60). Until the early 1990s, the region’s public TV channels practically held a monopoly over visual communication and information. One of the reasons for this status was that the film industries in the early post-socialist era faced serious problems

8  The origins of this new rock, pop, and techno-variant of Serbian folk music, played on electronic instruments, go back to Yugoslavia of the 1970s; the term ‘turbo-folk’ only came into use in the 1990s. Imbued with nationalistic rhetoric, the quality of music and most of its singers was low but their popularity high, especially among the young generation. 9  Like turbo-folk, chalga is a mixture of musical styles and traditions. Its components include Serbian, North Macedonian, Greek, and Turkish folk music, and various styles of Balkan Romani music, fused with Western pop, rock, techno, and rap. At its core, chalga features very distinguishable rhythmic patterns associated with ‘oriental’ or belly dance (Kurkela, 2007, 13–44; Gochev, 2017, 76–77, 80–83).

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after the collapse of state-sponsored film production. However, the monopoly-like public TV companies were soon attacked from two sides – by private TV channels and the rapidly growing Internet sector.

Internet As mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, the Internet has found wide recognition as a source of information and entertainment (Seybert, 2011, 1–6). However, the meanwhile high penetration rates obscure the fact that countries at different levels of digital development face diverse challenges. While most enjoy reasonably good Internet provision, the new technology has generated disruptions due to the lack of certain analogue factors such as affordability. More than 80% of the population in Armenia and Georgia, for example, would have to spend at least 10% of their household budgets to obtain a basic mobile telephone plan. A vicious circle emerges: high prices and poor service quality means that demand for the Internet is low, which in turn fails to generate incentives for infrastructure investment (Kelly, 2017, 8, 10–12). The cost factor also impacts on the penetration of smart phones because of the price of smart devices and high import duties relative to income levels. Albania has the highest Internet penetration but lowest use of smart phones in the region, at slightly above 30% (2016). It is followed by Azerbaijan and Bosnia and Herzegovina, where penetration is less than around 40%. Another important factor is the quality of access. Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro have the lowest wireless broadband penetration rates in the Eurasia Minor region. Urban areas tend to have greater Internet connectivity than rural areas. In Bulgaria and Romania, for instance, the urban-rural divide in terms of Internet access spans over 30 percentage points (ibid., 27, 29, 36). With the proliferation of social media as well as messaging and calling apps, the region uses the Internet overwhelmingly as a tool for communication and entertainment, although hitherto less prevalent forms of online use are on the rise. They include exploring educational opportunities and Internet banking. E-government services in the Balkans, however, are used by a mere 3% of citizens. Encouragingly, the number of respondents not using the Internet at all significantly decreased within a one-year period from 26% in 2018 to 17% in 2019, with Albania reporting the highest proportion of non-users. Close to two-thirds of the population in Serbia use the Internet for entertainment, whereas Montenegrins shop online more than any of their regional counterparts – 26% of users (Balkan Barometer, 2020, 64, 66). The share of the population reading news online is now significant since most newspapers have switched to online editions. The gender distribution of readers, and of Internet users in general, shows a gender and generation divide. Surveys from Serbia and Southeast Turkey report differences between genders regarding Internet use, with gender parity most widespread among the younger generation; among the older generation, there is a clear male prevalence. Use also differs between adults who are parents: men use the Internet more often and to a greater

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extent than women, which can be explained by the higher proportion of women with domestic and childcare responsibilities (Stanojević, 2012, 379–80; Costa, 2016, 31–37). In the Western Balkans, the gender gap between Internet users is among the biggest in the world. Respondents cite cost as the main reason for not owning a device or not using the service. Poor network quality or coverage is the second reason, followed by lack of technical literacy, and low operator trust (Kelly, 2017, 29). The region’s slight delay in Internet provision resulted in the later expansion of social media including blogospheres, already well developed in North America and the UK around 2010, and used especially by young people for self-presentation. In comparison, there were relatively few bloggers in Georgia at that time. The exact size of the Georgian blogosphere was unknown. Estimates put the figure at around 1500 bloggers  – only about 500 of whom were considered very active  – and an overall audience of about 10,000 to 15,000 (Sidorenko, 2010, 8, 10, 13). Azerbaijan’s blogosphere in those years was almost entirely based in Baku; more than 92% of bloggers were located in the capital. It is hard to say when the blogosphere in Azerbaijan really came about, since a diverse range of blogs covered issues such as art and photography, culture and fashion, music, politics, and religion. The approximate number of bloggers, both active and inactive, was around 30,000 (Sidorenko & Geybullayeva, 2010, 6). They were concentrated in urban centres because half of the 53% of the population living in rural areas had limited access to the Internet (Asadzade, 2014, 13). In general, social media, particularly social networks, gained huge popularity in the country around 2010 and have become an important channel of communication. Facebook was the most important medium for discussing politics at that time. The number of Facebook users corresponded to around a quarter of the Internet penetration rate (Jalalli, 2014, 15). Like in Azerbaijan, Facebook constitutes the most popular social network in the whole of Eurasia Minor, attracting around 90% of social network users on average (Costa, 2016, 37; Stojarová, 2020, 164). Turkey is an exception, where Facebook – with 51 million users in 2018 – is seriously challenged by YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.10 The Internet has become the most important agent and transmitter of images of the body. In the absence of current reliable data, the pornography industry can be assumed to be the foremost commercial player on the Internet. In the early 2000s, $12 billion annually were spent on making pornography in the US – the world’s largest producer of ‘adult’ products, as the producers like to call them – more than in Hollywood and corresponding to the sum spent by the state on foreign aid. In 2002, pornographic films earned nearly half as much as the $9  billion made by Hollywood at the box office. It is estimated that over 15  million webpages with pornographic content were accessible around 2010, while in 1999 there were only 66,000 such websites. Statistics show that in the 2000s around 72 million Internet users worldwide visited pornographic sites every month (Sarikakis & Shaukat, 2008, 107–12; European Parliament, 2014, 21–22).

 https://www.nordeatrade.com/en/explore-new-market/turkey/e-commerce July 2020).

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This massive evolution of the ‘pornosphere’ has not proceeded without resistance. On the contrary, it has been accompanied at every stage by renewed bouts of public debate around what is and is not legal, obscene, dangerous, or immoral in the field of sexual representation. The 1990s saw a succession of moral panics in the US, UK and elsewhere around the threat of ‘cyberporn’. Anti-pornography feminism identified porn as a mediated form of patriarchy, accusing both producers and consumers of contributing to the reinforcement and reproduction of patriarchy through its subjection of women to the oppressive male gaze. Religiously inspired lobbies argued that porn was blasphemous. The call for banning pornography, however, was based on the claim that exposure to its images would undermine family life and values by leading to imitative behaviour of a morally disruptive kind. Following this reasoning, the man or woman who viewed pornography would ‘do’ pornography (McNair, 2002, 49–54). Islamic cultures are also highly sensitive on the issue of pornography. For example, in 2011 the Turkish government produced a stir when it announced the introduction of a central Internet filter system. However, even before this announcement, sites with ‘obscene’ content, advertisements for alcoholic beverages, and sites that appeared to slur the memory of the Republic’s founder had already been blocked (Kaser, 2013, 289). Pornography aside, advertising plays an increasingly important commercial role on the Internet. Nonetheless, it appears that television remains the most important medium for advertising in the region as well as worldwide, while the print media have lost a considerable amount of their advertising revenues.

Newspapers and Magazines Due to the limited and fragmented markets in Eurasia Minor, most print media have remained in national ownership. Foreign investors are primarily interested in tabloid newspapers. The German media concerns Axel Springer and WAZ, along with Switzerland’s Ringier, are the most significant international players in the print media business in Southeast, Central, and Eastern Europe. Axel Springer has enjoyed spectacular success in Poland and other Central and Eastern European countries since 2005 (Downey, 2012, 124–25). Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (WAZ), the second-largest newspaper group in Germany after Springer, has particularly concentrated on the Balkans, although it owns around 500 print products in nine European countries. In Bulgaria and North Macedonia, for example, WAZ newspapers form a monopoly. The expansion of WAZ has resulted not only from purchases but also from price competition; the group was able to undercut competitors for a period in order to drive them out of business or prepare them for takeover (ibid., 128–31). This has been all the easier since, compared to other print media, daily newspapers experienced the biggest sales decline ever in the 2000s (Stojarová, 2020, 163–64). The family-owned company Ringier AG operates in Switzerland, Central and Eastern Europe, and Asia. Its business interests in Central and Eastern Europe focus

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on the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Serbia. Ringier’s business model for newspapers across the region has been to launch boulevard newspapers and magazines with little or no political content and a focus on entertainment, scandals, sex, and sport. In 2010, Springer and Ringier announced a joint venture to develop digitalisation in the region and finance acquisitions with a view to a stock market listing between 2013 and 2015. Together, they control the leading tabloid newspaper on each national market (Downey, 2012, 131–32). The tabloid press is representative of regional porno-chic culture. In the early 1990s, the most lucrative of the new newspapers had pornographic titles suggesting the publication of obscene material; they were relatively cheap to produce and the readership was guaranteed. In Bulgaria, for example, illustrations from Western magazines were simply reprinted with short texts added in Bulgarian (Bakardjieva, 1995). In 2001, 14 dailies were published in Belgrade; however, only two of them were serious papers. The rest were tabloids of the worst kind. The gender inequality, sexism, and misogyny observed on the cover pages and in the contents of such tabloids was accompanied by the frequent pornographic representation of women (Kronja, 2006, 194–97). Stereotypical comments appeared alongside images of the female body. The entire discourse of these papers rested on sexist stereotypes, vulgar and largely misogynistic sexual allusions, as well as gossip. The visual representation of entertainment stars was either sexist or pornographic (ibid., 193, 201–2). Contrary to newspapers, women’s and fashion magazines sponsored by international fashion, cosmetics, and advertising companies were released by regional subcontractors in the respective languages and reflected local preferences. These products achieve top national market shares. The example of Bosnia-Herzegovina will exemplify the market strategies behind them. Because of its pluri-ethnic composition, Bosnia and Herzegovina is a challenging market. International women’s magazines distributed in the early 2000s included Cosmopolitan, Elle, and Gloria, all widely available in the Croatian and Serbian languages and alphabets (Majstorović, 2006, 1100–2). In some cases, the background of these magazines is rather obscure. Cosmopolitan is among the few magazines to provide a little more insight. Owned by the press trust Hearst Corporation, the magazine was launched in the US while other countries later purchased licences to publish it in their languages. Today, Cosmopolitan appears in more than 30 languages, has 52 editions, and is for sale in more than 100 countries. In September 2005, it had a global readership of over 60 million per month. Croatia was the first of the former Yugoslav states to acquire a licence. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, no licence was purchased since the Croatian and Serbian editions are available in the country. Cosmopolitan promotes glamorous items such as high-end fashion, beauty products, and accessories. Its targeted readership does not correspond to the hegemonic femininity type analysed in the previous chapter; on the contrary, it presents women as sophisticated, urban, educated, glamorous, hard-working, and sexy. The target group is made up of women in their twenties to late forties who are financially independent, educated, politically aware, and open-minded about sexuality regardless of their ethnic or national group, religion, or any other socially determined characteristics (Petcu, 2012, 525; Suciu, 2012, 527; Kešetović, 2013, 3–7).

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Turning to national magazines, Bulgaria presents a useful case study. Before 1989, there were only two national women’s magazines (and no men’s magazine): Zhenata Dnes (Woman Today) and Lada, the editorial content of which was under complete government control through the Committee for the Movement of Bulgarian Women, the socialist women’s organisation (Ghodsee, 2007, 33–34; Kirova & Slavova, 2012, 75). After 1989, many new and privately-owned women’s magazines began to appear on the newsstands. By 2004, the most popular women’s beauty and fashion magazines included Eva (Eve), Moda (Fashion), Bela (Beauty), Kosa i Stil (Hair and Style), and a Bulgarian edition of Cosmopolitan. Like most commercial magazines, these publications are heavily dependent on advertising revenues. Cosmetics and perfumery feature in the majority of ads which do not mirror the hegemonic femininity type but the visual style of porno-chic, i.e. very young, slim, and flawless women. Smiling, confident, and often scantily clad, they promote cosmetic products (Ghodsee, 2007, 33–34). Media consumption experience was dramatically affected by the marketisation of the industry. In a saturated, small market, publications were forced to compete vigorously for attention. The industry’s response was to turn to sexualised images as an immediate solution: sexy female bodies increased circulation. Thus, the gendered aesthetics of the emerging media of the transition period cannot be attributed to local forces alone. In the limited Balkan markets, tabloid-like strategies based on porno-chic visualisation were favoured by international as well as domestic media publishers. While feminism in the West raised awareness about the need for more emancipated portrayals of women in the media, trends during the post-socialist transition went in the opposite direction, suggesting that depictions of gender were closely related to the sociocultural environment of porno-chic. However, it is obvious that porno-chic culture developed regional dynamics and peculiarities that could not easily be satisfied by Western patterns. Lifestyle magazines such as Egoist make good examples because they negotiated both imported and local conceptions of gender identity. Egoist (1996–2007) was a sensation on the Bulgarian market. The title suggested a certain valorisation of individualism which easily appeared as a form of resistance to, or forthright rejection of, the strong collectivist values of the previous era. It introduced the concept of lifestyle to the Bulgarian audience along with stylised representations of women, showing that Bulgarian women, too, could be staged to look like Western models (Keremidchieva, 2015, 113–25). In countries with majority Muslim populations, the rift between porno-chic and veiling-chic, as mentioned for the sphere of television, is obvious in newspapers and magazines; however, it is not clearly defined. In the course of the 1990s, an Islamic press developed in Turkey in opposition to the mainstream media. Islamic groups became better organised, building their movements through numerous daily, weekly, and monthly periodicals (Algan, 2003, 177). The leading columnists writing in Islamic newspapers at the same time authored books that influenced and mobilised a young generation of Islamists who formed a ‘counter-elite’ that questioned the project of Western modernity. In contrast to the mainstream press, these newspapers were much more conservative and puritan about female images and did not tolerate

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nudity. This did not mean that images of women, or of women without headscarves, were banned. Irrespective of their political inclination, Turkish newspapers are highly visual, which can be linked to the vast extent of television culture (Özcan, 2010, 13). Women’s magazines acquired a big market share in the course of the 1980s and 1990s and today constitute an important branch of the media market (Akanyıldız, 2015, 228). Many of these publications are accessible both as hard copies and online, so that there are now more ways than ever to follow Muslim lifestyles through the media. The magazines are unusual in that they take faith as a basis for consumption and lifestyle practices. They visualise, and recommend, how readers can present themselves through their dress in a way that is recognisable to members of the given community. More than other lifestyle features, the fashion pages require journalists and readers to negotiate visual politics regarding the representation of the human form and especially the female body (Lewis, 2015, 109–10, 112–14). After a phase of expansion, the market for the Islamic press seems to be saturated. An increasing number of newspapers and magazines are moving online in order to survive and keep in touch with the visual ideals of younger generations. However, their social impact has significantly decreased; this is all the more true of cinema. In the new visual order of the digital era, it is not film as such that has lost out, but rather cinema as an institution. Like its analogous competitor television, an institution that dominated visual culture in the middle of the previous century has been thrown into crisis by the wealth of digital images.

The Cinema Industry Cinema in the Balkans reached its peak – in terms of audience numbers and domestic film production – in the late 1960s. Starting then, but more visibly from the early 1970s, television became a serious rival to the cinema industry. While the Turkish and Greek cinema industries drifted into crisis already in the early 1970s, the socialist countries, despite supporting the advancement of television, were able to avoid a similar situation until the collapse of those regimes (Kaser, 2018, 325–42). In state socialism, film production and distribution worked within a specific administrative framework. Each country had a government body in charge of filmmaking; funding was centralised and came exclusively from the state. A system of exchange among the Eastern Bloc countries was in place, which ensured that feature films received exposure in a range of ‘friendly’ countries. The average annual cinematic output of the socialist states, including Yugoslavia, was between 350 and 400 feature films a year (Iordanova, 2003, 21–23). The end of state socialism caused a deep crisis in film production, resulting in crumbling production routines, an abrupt decrease in state funding, and a sharp increase in unemployment among skilled personnel. The funding of film production shifted from a unit-based studio system to producer-driven enterprises (ibid., 143–46). Today, even films supported by state subsidies are ultimately financed

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from a patchwork of sources. Thus the producer, whose role is to create the budget and then balance it by acting as an intermediary between finance and talent, rapidly gained a crucial position in the filmmaking process (Iordanova, 1999, 48). Data on feature film production in the Eurasia Minor countries throughout the 1990s reveals two basic patterns: stability in countries with capitalist economies like Greece and Turkey, but a decline in cinematic output across those undergoing transition from state socialism to a free market economy. In the 1990s, studios in Yugoslavia such as Avala (Serbia) and Vardar (Macedonia) were no longer able to attract co-productions. Among the survivors is Bulgaria’s Boyana studio in Sofia that had an annual output of around 25 feature films during its peak in the 1980s. Hit by financial difficulties in the 1990s, the studio did not work to its full capacity for nearly a decade (Iordanova, 2001). After Hollywood films were almost completely banned in the socialist countries (Kaser, 2018, 254–57), with the exception of Yugoslavia, American films celebrated a triumphant revival. ln 2007, some 70% of all films distributed in Bulgaria were US feature films (Štětka, 2012, 168). Hollywood’s domination led to the spread of multiplex cinemas (Sifaki, 2003). This form of movie theatre was introduced in the US in the late 1980s and conquered the world in the 1990s, when American distributors started to provide funds to Europe for the construction of multiplex theatres (Kalemci, 2013, 30–32). Whereas European Union programmes such as MEDIA and cinema support fund Eurimages are trying to keep European film production alive (Iordanova, 1999, 51), Turkey has developed a remarkable domestic film industry. After two decades of decline, Turkish cinema experienced a revival in the 1990s with some highly successful films that managed to attract new audiences. New film directors emerged with diverse perspectives and styles. In the early 2000s, new support mechanisms for film production such as purchase by TV stations and deals with sponsors led to visible growth in film production (Kara & Eşitti, 2017, 204; Tanrıöver Uğur, 2017, 324–25). Meanwhile, the revitalisation of Islam is reflected in an increasing number of films that might be identified as overtly religious. These films often tell stories of religious figures and express Islamic values. One of the most important elements of these works is an emphasis on the conversion of women to ‘true Islam’ by assuming the hijab. Another genre of religious film includes elements of Islam as part of everyday life. Although these films are not distinctly religious, they portray Turkey as a country with an Islamic culture and include various components of that culture as a backdrop to the main story (Yorulmaz & Blizek, 2014). These latter developments in Turkey deviate from the direction taken by Hollywood, where a considerable number of non-white, non-straight, and non-male filmmakers entered the scene. Such crossovers into mainstream Hollywood from marginalised groups are apparent in the higher number of women directors and the visibility of multiple kinds of male homosexual identity and, to a lesser extent, lesbian identities on screen (Davies & Smith, 2013). Despite this new cinema culture headed by Hollywood, film production in Eurasia Minor initially remained a male domain, and the few female filmmakers

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working across the Balkan countries and Turkey did not explicitly subscribe to feminist ideas (Iordanova, 2001) until the early 2000s. However, since 2005 there has been a sharp rise both in the number of women directors as well as in the number of films with a feminist agenda and reflecting the growing feminist discourse on women’s rights in Turkey. This is related to the increased number and strength of women’s organisations during the 2000s; these directors often developed subversive strategies of disrupting patriarchal culture. Another factor to positively contribute to the presence of women in the cinema industry has been the women’s film festival. While many European countries do not even have a women’s film festival, Turkey has two: Uçan Süpürge (Flying Broom) in Ankara and Filmmor (Purple Film) in Istanbul. These festivals constitute an important platform that provides women with visibility, especially those making films (Tanrıöver Uğur, 2017, 324–31). To sum up, the emerging post-socialist and post-Kemalist media landscapes were marked, first, by market liberalisation including the establishment of multi-channel TV systems in the 1990s, and second, by increasing Internet accessibility from about 2010. As we have seen, market liberalisation contributed significantly to the emergence and intensification of porno-chic and veiling-chic cultures. While the market for national newspapers and magazines declined, multi-channel television clearly took over the mediascape. Meanwhile, the Internet has become firmly entrenched as a primary medium of communication and secondary medium of entertainment and information. However, the regional markets, except for Turkey, are small and fragmented; on the long term, this tends to disadvantage media produced in national languages and benefits media operating independently of a national language, like the Internet. Consequently, the visual representation of femininities and masculinities is no longer determined by the press, is currently the domain of television, and increasingly becoming the domain of the Internet. This trend is clearly reflected in the advertising business.

Advertising According to a worldwide comparison compiled in 2017, television advertising (34.8%) and online advertising (18.2%) together constituted around half of global advertising expenditure. Mobile advertising (advertising via the mobile phone) doubled from 9.2% in 2015 to 18.4% in 2017 to become the second most important form of advertising. Newspaper advertising decreased but still played a major role with a share of 10.1%. In contrast, outdoor and magazine advertising, as well as radio and cinema commercials, were no longer significant.11 Generally, newspaper advertising has lost to the Internet and social media advertising (Köksal & Isufi, 2013, 27–28).  https://web.archive.org/web/20160804010556/http://www.zenithoptimedia.com/wp-content/ uploads/2015/12/Adspend-forecasts-December-2015-executive-summary.pdf (accessed on 15 July 2020).

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Turning to the post-socialist countries specifically, advertising expenditure rose rapidly, though from a very low base and remaining extremely moderate by Western European standards (Sparks, 2012, 55–56). In Romania, advertising expenditure centupled from 1993 to 1999, increased tenfold until 2005, and rose by 40% in 2006. Television was the major beneficiary of spending on advertising and received a much greater portion of advertising money than its counterparts in Western European countries. By 2004, television had garnered 87% of advertising expenditure and the print media only 11% (Coman, 2009, 187–88).12 In a parallel development, domestic advertising industries grew. In the 1990s, the Bulgarian advertising industry produced scarcely 10% of ads on the market; by around 2010, its share was already about 50%. About half of employees in the advertising industry were women. Most graphic designers and creative directors were men, while women tended to dominate at the directorship level of advertising agencies. This is a rare example of a well-paid profession in which women have asserted themselves in Bulgaria – mostly because of fair competition in the selection of staff and the gradual promotion of specialists in the field (Kirova & Slavova, 2012, 74). The monetary crisis, however, caused a setback for the advertising industry with two major consequences. First, because of the shrinking advertising market, the state remained the primary advertiser (Stojarová, 2020, 169–70). Second, online advertising with its low production costs has increased spectacularly, ranking second among the most popular forms of promoting products and services after television advertising. In Romania, the advertising market slumped significantly in 2009, moving from television and print to online media. The previous year, 2008, was one of the best in terms of the online market, with growth of over 70% compared to 2007 (Radbâţă, 2010, 92–93). Advertising revenues earned by newspapers have been kept artificially high by the considerable share of state advertising in many countries. This policy is double-edged; it keeps newspapers alive but makes them dependent on governments. Nevertheless, this system works successfully in the Balkan countries and Turkey, too, where advertising is the main and most crucial source of income for this media sector. Figures for various Turkish newspapers over several years all indicate that a newspaper cannot operate and survive without advertising revenue if it is not subsidised in some other way. Sales revenues add up to less than the cost of paper and printing, even when overheads such as for staff, rent, and utilities are excluded from the calculation. Two explanations for this phenomenon are the low purchasing power of consumers and the competition policies of market leaders. Therefore, efforts to increase circulation do not aim at boosting sales income but advertising revenues (Yanatma, 2016, 14, 16). Since around 2010, the pattern of advertising expenditure has been heavily skewed towards television and away from the press. In some countries, the Internet  Interestingly, Albania showed similar rates for the same year. In 2004, the media sector achieved total revenue of $15.66 million; newspapers earned revenue of $3.25 million. Newspaper advertising was still very important and constituted the second largest channel (10.7%) after TV and ahead of Internet advertising (Köksal & Isufi, 2013, 1, 27–35).

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started to win a rapidly increasing segment of the market around 2010 (Sparks, 2012, 55–56). Serbia is symptomatic for this trend, where expenditure for Internet advertising jumped from €4 million in 2009 to €8 million in 2011 and €12 million in 2012. In comparison, spending on television advertising hovered at similar levels between 2007 and 2019 (growing slightly from €102 million to €103 million), while the value of magazine and newspaper advertising dropped from €40  million to €19 million during the same time span.13 In the case of Turkey, the year of turnaround was reached in 2014. Whereas the share of television advertising remained above 50%, newspaper advertising fell from 20.4% in 2013 to 17.1 in 2014, and further to 15.82 in the first half of 2015. In 2014, Internet advertising dramatically increased its share by more than 100% – from 9.74 to 19.9% (Yanatma, 2016, 14). With this jump, Turkey joined the Balkan countries where the share of TV commercials was still above 50% and the Internet share between 15% and 20%.14 In the near future, two big advertising segments will dominate the field: television and the Internet. Projections for Romania see 61.5% of advertising expenditure going to television in 2024, and 25.3% to the Internet.15 Capacities for digital advertising in the region are by far not exhausted. Most firms in the Balkans use the Internet but face a number of specific challenges. For example, in countries such as Albania and Moldova the use of e-mail is low, impeding communication between clients and suppliers. Firms in these two countries are generally hampered by poor Internet access and high prices (Kelly, 2017, 39, 84; Balkan Barometer, 2019, 122). In addition, scarcely half of the companies in the Balkans use the Internet for advertising, although, according to a Balkan Barometer survey, the third most important reason given for Internet use is business presentation via websites. However, it is obvious that advertising and direct communication with customers through social media channels such as Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram are becoming increasingly important, while more conventional means of communication and marketing – e-mail and websites – are gradually losing their position (Balkan Barometer, 2019, 122). Relatively few companies engage in e-commerce, and many firms still use intermediaries instead of online platforms such as eBay and Amazon or their own websites to market their products and sell to customers (Kelly, 2017, 39, 84; Balkan Barometer, 2019, 122). Therefore, online sales make up only a small share of revenues. The retail store remains the key point of sale for large companies. Interestingly, online sales channels are more important for small companies and start-ups, as online shops do not require many employees or fixed assets (Balkan Barometer, 2019, 22–23).

 https://www.statista.com/statistics/491730/advertising-spend-by-medium-serbia/ (accessed on 15 July 2020. 14  https://wecan.net/page/detail/34/economic-and-advertising-trends-in-cee (accessed on 15 July 2020). 15  https://www.statista.com/statistics/491832/advertising-spend-by-medium-romania/ (accessed on 15 July 2020). 13

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The e-commerce market varies from country to country. In Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and North Macedonia, this market is still underdeveloped; in Bulgaria, Romania, and Serbia it has expanded moderately since the mid-2010s. This development has gone hand in hand with rising GDP, improved access to broadband Internet, and increasing smartphone penetration (Vargas, 2018). Still, in Serbia with an annual e-commerce growth rate of almost 11%, 90% of online shoppers buy via desktop.16 Most e-commerce consumers in Bulgaria are young people between 16 and 24 years of age. The majority of products bought online fall into the fashion category, followed by electronics and media.17 Although the e-commerce market in Turkey recorded one of the highest growth rates in Europe in the late 2010s, it has remained smaller than in most European countries with similar populations. The e-commerce penetration rate was 3.5% in 2016, significantly lower than the global average of 8.5%. The growth of this market segment is expected to be fuelled by mobile phones, and Turkey has one of the highest smartphone penetration rates in Europe. However, only 33% of Turkey’s Internet users, who numbered around 60 million in 2020, shop online. This is considerably less than the European average of 66% of Internet users. According to a recent report, Turkish respondents cited shopping as one of the last reasons to go online – only around 20% of Internet users – while 82% accessed social media. On the other hand, the amount spent per online purchase was comparable to Europe and the United States. The majority of Turkish Internet users choose e-commerce over traditional retail due to lower prices and not for its convenience.18 It is more difficult to obtain comparable data on e-commerce and Internet advertising for the South Caucasian countries. However, ambitions in both fields seem more moderate than in the Balkans and Turkey since e-business is only emerging. The use of social networks is the most popular activity on the Internet. Despite their strong presence in the region, not all local enterprises see the potential of this tool for growing business. According to numerous studies on this issue, the majority of South Caucasian enterprises have social media profiles but their accounts often show no activity or lack updates. Many businesses do not know how to manage these resources properly and efficiently. For many companies, having a social network account serves the same purpose as a website, i.e. to bring the company online but not to interact with the target public (Goshadze & Barba-Sánchez, 2016, 4). Thus, advertising strategies in the countries of Eurasia Minor roughly follow international trends, but companies have not yet fully exploited the advertising capacities offered by the Internet compared to in Northwest European countries, the US and Japan. Although Internet access has been delayed by one to two decades in most of the Balkan countries and Turkey, and is not yet fully available across the  https://www.nordeatrade.com/en/explore-new-market/serbia/e-commerce (accessed on 15 July 2020). 17  https://pfgbulgaria.com/hr/bulgarian-e-commerce-view-point-consumers-sellers/ (accessed on 15 July 2020). 18  https://www.nordeatrade.com/en/explore-new-market/turkey/e-commerce (accessed on 15 July 2020). 16

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South Caucasus, press advertising no longer plays a crucial role as Internet advertising expands. However, governments keep newspapers alive and obedient via state-­ sponsored advertising. It is obvious that even in the South Caucasian countries (mobile) Internet advertising will leave press advertising far behind and pose a serious challenge to the TV advertising sector. Advertising plays a crucial if not the role in the construction of utopian femininities and masculinities. This key role is also reflected in the enormous amounts of money involved. However, additional factors are relevant; the regional fashion industry, for example, produces items not only for global brands but also for domestic markets and provides Internet advertising with an additional impulse.

The Fashion Industry Following the fall of socialism, most of the big international fashion labels established production in low-cost countries such as Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkey, as well as in other Eastern European countries. About 70 to 80% of all garments produced in Eastern Europe are shipped to the EU, nearly half to Germany. Big Turkish and Greek manufacturers also operate their own or subcontracted production facilities in Romania, North Macedonia, Albania, and Bulgaria. The combined garment imports from Eastern Europe and Turkey alone comprise one third of Germany’s total fashion imports, equalling the total from all of Asia. Mail order and brand name companies, discount and off-price stores, mass merchandisers and specialty stores such as Adidas, Nike, Puma, Kappa, Betty Barclay, Hugo Boss, Strellson, H & M, 3Suisse, Replay & Sons, Sara Lee, C & A, Triangle, Adler, Karstadt, Quelle, Benetton, Steilmann, Gerry Weber, and Bernd Berger, among many others, all source from Eastern Europe (Musiolek, 2004, 2–6). This section will present the textile industries of two countries, Bulgaria and Turkey, to illustrate recent developments. In 2004, the Bulgarian textile and garment sector comprised about 2500 active companies and employed around 180,000 people on average salaries of about €90 per month. Textile and apparel contributed to Bulgaria’s exports with a 22% share. More recently, employment has declined, chiefly as an effect of the worldwide financial crisis in the wake of 2008. In 2009, there were only 140,000 employees left in the textile sector, which consists for the most part of subcontractors. In recent years, only 6% of Bulgarian production was sold on the national market; 94% was exported (Ermann, 2013b, 1350–51). Typically, Bulgarian firms produce for global brands and only produce for local labels when orders are low or production capacity remains unused (Ermann, 2013a, 177–81). Ulrich Ermann (ibid., 174–77) has described the overall shift from a culture of need and deficit in late socialism to a culture of consumption in post-socialist countries such as Bulgaria. This new ‘consumer capitalism’ that came to the fore in the 1990s is expressed through symbolic values and aspects of goods and commodities. The chronic scarcity of consumer goods in the state-led socialist economies

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provoked a yearning for Western products and enormous appreciation of their symbolic power. In the East, Western brands and consumer goods stood for freedom. Because of the previous symbolic significance of such items, consumerism became one of the defining features of post-socialist society. The garment industry in Turkey, the second example, has faced similar structural problems to its Bulgarian counterpart. What distinguishes the Turkish industry from the Bulgarian is the emergence of an additional, very dynamic sector in the 1980s that is able to sell its products primarily on the domestic market. The Islamic fashion or tesettür19 industry has become a conspicuous part of the Turkish garment industry in the past four decades. Its growth has taken place within the wider and highly contested framework of the rise of political Islam and the Islamisation of the economy in Turkey, which includes Islamic banking, business associations, entrepreneurial models, and workplace practices. The companies in this industry engage in the design, production, marketing, and sale of distinctive commodities stylised to signify ‘Islamic-ness’. While in the 1980s and early 1990s these commodities were limited to oversized headscarves, long overcoats, and modest dress, over time the growth of the industry and its entry into global fashion networks, as well as demand for innovation, have led to the wide diversification of veiling fashion (Gökarıksel & Secor, 2010, 314). In addition, the advance of the Internet and related information technologies in the 2000s have reduced the costs of production, advertising, and retailing, and enabled new fashions to proliferate throughout the world, for example via YouTube fashion tutorials and fashion blogs. This has facilitated the emergence of new fashion designers and the development of new clothing brands in many Muslim contexts (Alimen, 2018, 220–21). Most designers of ‘modest fashion’ began their careers by means of the Internet and social media; they wrote fashion and shopping blogs, and shared photos showing their own outfit combinations and veiling styles. As their personal dress styles became popular among veiled women and their following increased, some considered turning their designs into a business and were even encouraged to do so by their followers (ibid., 196–97). This roughly defined sub-sector of the Turkish garment industry has been estimated to comprise around 200 firms operating within the context of a burgeoning Islamic consumer culture. While the mega-city of Istanbul remains the undeniable centre of the industry, Konya has emerged as an important node in the veiling fashion industry. A historic centre of Islamic learning since the twelfth century, Konya is considered a spiritual and social centre of Islam in Turkey, of ‘green capital’ and the Islamic bourgeoisie. Konya’s role as a centre of conservatism and Islamic

 The term tesettür is derived from the Arabic root s-t-r: to cover/covering. It was introduced to describe the personal choice to veil, and in Turkish signifies a set of Islamic practices whereby women fully cover their heads and bodies and avoid contact with unrelated men. Tesettür is considered properly achieved by wearing a large headscarf and a full-length, loose-fitting overcoat. However, tesettür has proved an evasive signifier, especially following the emergence of a new garment sector that uses this term to market its fashionable products (Gökarıksel & Secor, 2010, 330, FN 2; Crăciun, 2017, 27–28).

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business practices is reflected in the relatively large presence that Islamic banks maintain in the city (Gökarıksel & Secor, 2010, 314, 317–18, 320). The proponents of Islamic economics prescribe rules for the behaviour of Islamic firms based on Koranic injunctions and Islamic ethical mandates regarding business transactions, workplace practices, fair wages, community benefits, and modes of profit. Thus, Islamic businesses must navigate the solidarity, social responsibility, other-worldly orientation and ‘high morality’ of Islamic ethics, while at the same time adhering to the demands of competitiveness, global integration, profit-making in an interest-based economy, and this-worldly concerns (Gökarıksel & Secor, 2009, 11). This approach will be exemplified by looking at two leading companies. Tekbir Giyim (God is great) and Armine, both launched in 1982, are among the most prominent veiling fashion companies in Turkey. However, they differ not only in price but also in their ideological approach to commercial tesettür. Tekbir sees itself as having an educative role and guides customers in the correct form of covering, making sure that all in-store visual merchandising accords with appropriate bodily display. In contrast, Armine offers multiple versions of tesettür as well as non-tesettür fashion items, for example shorter jackets, and uses ‘un-Islamic’ colours like red (Lewis, 2015, 77–79). The marketing of veiling fashion works with both the polarity between Islam and fashion and its reduction. On the one hand, some of the visual tropes of tesettür advertising are clearly influenced by Islamic ideals. While models at Tekbir’s fashion shows do strike the usual provocative poses at the end of the catwalk, the catalogue images are generally more conservative. On the other hand, the scenes within which models pose almost never reference religion but are connected to notions of cosmopolitanism, leisure, and modernity. In short, veiling fashion is marketed to accommodate both Islamic ideals and a materialistic, aspirational lifestyle characterised by travel, leisure, and affluence. This is the chic-and-modest, conservative-­ and-­trendy market niche of veiling fashion (Gökarıksel & Secor, 2015, 2586, 2590). The tensions that emerge from veiling fashion have been highlighted by a number of scandals in connection with fashion shows, especially those organised by Tekbir in Istanbul. In 1992, the company organised the first tesettür fashion show in Turkey. Famous Turkish models, who normally showed underwear, swimwear, and Western-style clothes to the secular upper classes, presented Islamic clothing (Sandıkcı & Ger, 2007, 195–96). Then, over a decade later, Tekbir in 2008 hired a German fashion designer, Heidi Beck, to design the collection (Gökarıksel & Secor, 2009, 6–7). Also, Tekbir’s 2011 show caused a stir when for the first time male models were dressed in clothes quite indistinguishable from any other men’s fashion and were joined by female models on the catwalk (Gökarıksel & Secor, 2015, 2581–83). Making a business out of modest Islamic dress completely contradicts orthodox Islam. According to the orthodox viewpoint, veiling is God-given and its requirement is immutable; in contrast, fashion is created by human beings and changes constantly. Veiling is about dressing in conformity with the Islamic principle of modesty, and religiously inspired dress is necessarily austere and subdued. Thus, wearing a fashionable covering equals mere consumption and frivolous

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self-enhancement. The wearing of stylish headscarves does not represent the pursuit of piety, but an interest in self-decoration. Consequently, the existence of Islamic fashion is conceptually impossible (Crăciun, 2017, 34–35, 37). The previous paragraphs have focused on the opposition between orthodox Islamic viewpoints and the commercial interests of Islamic fashion companies in Turkey. However, it is important to note that the Turkish market is not isolated. Compared to Christian population (one third), the global Muslim population is the second largest in the world (one quarter) and more than 60% of Muslims are under the age of 30, making them the largest youth population (Hassan, 2018, 80–81). Islamic international fashion developed from the 1980s when immigrant grocery dealers in Western Europe and United States began to import modest fashion clothing along with other items for the Muslim population. These small entrepreneurial endeavours ultimately morphed into a competitive and profitable Muslim fashion industry. Today, Muslim fashion is a lucrative global industry led outside the West by countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, and Turkey (ibid., 84). The Muslim clothing market represents 12% of global expenditure on clothing (Ajala, 2017, 4). The increase in Islamic garment production on an international scale would not have been so fast without the use of digital communication. Muslim designers and bloggers from the UK were among the first to promote modest fashion on the Internet. Unlike tesettür in Turkey, where most leading brands are managed by male-dominated family businesses with some female participation, many of the UK and North American labels that emerged in the last two decades are run by women. This relocation of expert knowledge and the opportunity to participate in its circulation have certainly been significant for women (Lewis, 2015, 238–44). Most of the early modest fashion websites and blogs notably avoided the kind of sexualised imagery associated with the conventional fashion industry. Religious sensitivities around the display of the human form were especially pronounced in relation to images of women, and brought companies, designers, and communication teams up against competing conventions and practices within their own religious communities and those of their target buyers. In particular, some Muslim companies adhered to interpretations of Islam that prohibit the representation of the human form, or tried to avoid causing offence to such groups. This resulted in visual presentations that cropped the face and/or head from images, or avoided showing products on bodies at all, restricting visuals to product shots or photos of mannequins (Lewis, 2015, 253–68). The late 2000s saw an increase in modest fashion blogs of all sorts along with larger numbers of designers and entrepreneurs entering the modest market. This second generation of fashion designers and mediators is characterised by a less functionalist attitude to visual representations of the female form and to digital communication (ibid., 253). After more than three decades of a flourishing Islamic garment industry, fashion products are expected to increasingly resemble mainstream fashion in terms of presentation and style. There are two main reasons for this tendency. First, the younger generation wants to be trendy without compromising on its halal lifestyle. Primarily Turkish women have started to create young modest fashion by fusing streetwear and tesettür brands, thus challenging the established conservative labels. Rejecting

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the aesthetic homogeneity of the tesettür ‘uniform’, they have started to purchase outfits from high-quality ‘secular’ fashion retailers. This indicates a second trend, namely the embracing of Muslimah-oriented fashion by international brands and retailers like Koton, Mango, Zara, Dolce & Gabbana, Tommy Hilfiger, Uniqlo, and H & M, as these companies make sure not to get left behind. Large retailers like Tommy Hilfiger have designed collections specially for the Ramadan fasting month, and Nike has announced the release of a hijab for athletes. It seems that regular fashion has stepped into the arena of Islamic and modest fashion, and vice versa. In Turkey, tesettür manufacturers have started to produce more form-fitting clothes corresponding to the body-conscious global trend, while some of the more conservative brands like Tekbir, mentioned above, now offer items in red, previously regarded as a non-Islamic colour (ibid., 181). To sum up at this point, we can conclude that with the rise of political Islam in the 1980s, demand grew for headscarves, overcoats, and similar items. Subsequently, a clothing industry developed to cater to this market. Fashion production for tesettür women became an internationally expanding industry that today produces clothes in a variety of cuts, shapes, and colours, and for various prices segments. The initial uniformity of this kind of dress gradually gave way to more heterogeneous styles. Especially among middle and upper-class, urban, well-educated, and younger religious women, a rising fashion consciousness has emerged (Sandıkcı & Ger, 2007, 195). Tesettür, the previously exclusive symbol of political Islam, has touched fashion; and Islamic fashion has met international brands and fashion labels. This will not ease the polarisation between porno-chic and veiling-chic significantly, but convergences are noticeable. As we have seen, international brands and fashion labels naturally follow the principle of profit maximisation. The open conflict in Turkey between commercial interests and religious dogmas invites investigation of the role of religious entrepreneurs and their strong moral appeal in more detail.

Religious Entrepreneurs The commercial media, advertising, and the fashion industry are the most obvious actors mediating between realia and utopia. However, non-commercial mediators with social ambitions as well as religious organisations also play a significant role. The moral power of religions, especially, should not be underestimated. The three Abrahamitic religions have a clear vision of femininity and masculinity, which can be summarised as follows: the woman as pious mother and housekeeper, and the man as pious father-protector and breadwinner. Sexual relations should be reserved for the married couple. The central question here is whether the predominant religions in the Balkans and South Caucasus have the means and societal impact to essentially participate and play a moral role in the construction of increasingly commodified femininities and masculinities. In this regard, it is useful to distinguish between orthodoxy (correct belief) and orthopraxy (correct conduct) on the one hand, and between top-down and

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bottom-up desecularisation on the other. Religions that primarily emphasise orthodoxy, such as Catholicism and Christian Orthodoxy, adhere most strongly to a ‘right’ set of beliefs. Following the right path is a question of inner conviction and does not necessarily have to be demonstrated in overt everyday behaviour (with the exception of the clergy). The term orthopraxy, however, emphasises both principles: inner conviction and the public conduct of believers. Both Islam and Judaism emphasise orthopraxy. The wearing of a headscarf, and in the case of men wearing a beard and appropriate clothing, are only a few, though important, outward signs of Islamic devotion. Islamic bodily practices include, but are not limited to, covering the body of both men and women, consuming meat that is deemed halal and slaughtered in a ritually approved way, and abstaining from alcohol and goods containing alcohol that will be absorbed by the body (such as perfumes and skincare products with alcohol). Interpretations of the Islamic prescriptions in relation to the body have changed among different persuasions and across time and space. In Turkish culture, a woman’s sphere of modesty includes the entire body except the face and hands, while a man’s sphere of modesty, regardless of location and who is present, is the area between the navel and the knees (Alimen, 2018, 9–10). A narrow and well-trimmed moustache (a Kemalist adaptation of the traditional bushy moustache), as well as loosely styled trousers, can indicate a man’s religious and political stance as a conservative Muslim or an Islamist. Some younger Islamists grow again the moustache untrimmed. A full beard, another common signifier of piety and traditionally grown by older men in Turkey, became fashionable and widespread among some young Islamic/Islamist men in the 2010s. However, ‘trendy’ beard styles worn by younger men would not be read as an indicator of a pious identity (ibid., 179–82). Because of the low relevance of orthopraxy in Catholicism and Orthodoxy, similar dress regulations have not been imposed in Christian communities. In addition, this explains why a high percentage of active believers among the population of a particular region does not necessarily impact significantly on public visual representations of femininity and masculinity. A second important set of categories relates to the character of religious revitalisation. Vyacheslav Karpov has introduced an important distinction between desecularisation primarily imposed from the top down, and desecularisation inspired from the bottom up (Karpov, 2013). This also connects to the question of whether religious revitalisation has been of a temporary or a sustainable kind, which could make a difference with respect to the construction of femininities and masculinities after socialism. Typically, desecularisation from above was a post-socialist phenomenon. Such measures were introduced from 1989 onwards either by decree as a result of political decisions, or by legislation, in connection with official and unofficial policies and their specific ideological direction. Measures included the (re)introduction of religious instruction in schools and other institutions, the return of religion to the public sphere, the restitution of church properties, and the state-sponsored rebuilding of churches. In other words, this was desecularisation carried out by an alliance of the secular state and religious elites, and with the passive consent of the masses.

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This kind of desecularisation, however, could not force people to attend church on a regular basis. Thus, if they did not voluntarily read the scriptures, adults were not familiarised with core doctrines and were less likely to derive their moral judgments from their newly ‘refound’ faith. In contrast, bottom-up desecularisation has been a slow and long process involving popular religious movements from below, in response to the secularising policies upheld by former governments. One of the most spectacular cases of desecularisation in the recent history of Eurasia Minor has been the rising tide of Islamic movements questioning the domination of Kemalist secularism in Turkey. It seems that desecularisation from above is a rather temporary phenomenon, whereas bottom-up desecularisation can be considered more sustainable. However, it does not necessarily endanger the secular state. Most of the desecularising changes in post-socialist Eurasia Minor over the past three decades were induced and carried out from above. Observers have called this phenomenon ‘believing without belonging’, i.e. faith accompanied by a lack of strict adherence to religious norms (Agadjanian & Roudometof, 2005, 15). Of course, every country in the region has its peculiarities, but two observations are particularly relevant here. As mentioned above, for members of Orthodox communities, as well as Catholics, orthodoxy prevails over orthopraxy. Religious belief is in the foreground rather than ostentatiously correct behaviour. Second, the Orthodox as well as Islamic revivals in the Balkans and in Azerbaijan are quite temporary phenomena compared to Islamic revival in Turkey. On the long term, Islam in Turkey has had significantly more impact on the visual representation of femininities  – and to a lesser extent of masculinities  – than Orthodoxy and Islam beyond Turkey. The temporary character of Orthodox desecularisation is not obvious at first glance. According to the 2008 European Values Study, the percentage of people who said they believed in God was between 90% and 100% in all Orthodox countries except Bulgaria (75%). The same was true of countries with Muslim majorities, except Azerbaijan (89%).20 However, the percentage of people attending religious services at least once a week has remained low. It is highest in Turkey and Bosnia and Hercegovina (between 30% and 40%) and lowest in Serbia and Bulgaria (less than 10%).21 In a survey conducted in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the late 2000s, 82% of Muslim informants said that they did not read the Qur’an and had very little and only superficial knowledge of other holy books. Very few Catholic and Orthodox believers actually read the Bible or felt that they had a personal relationship to the holy text (Spahić Šiljak, 2010, 233). Xavier Bougarel has established signs of deep secularisation among the Muslim populations in the Balkans and a persistent weakness of Islamic religious institutions. Whereas religion remains an irreplaceable marker of collective identity, religiosity has become more and more of an individual question (Bougarel, 2003,  http://www.atlasofeuropeanvalues.eu/new/europa.php?ids=1251&year=2008 (accessed on 15 July 2020). 21  http://www.atlasofeuropeanvalues.eu/new/zieeuropa.php?year=2008%20 (accessed on 15 July 2020). 20

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351–52). The increased visibility of Islam in the Balkans is thus not tantamount to a ‘re-Islamisation’ of Muslims in the region (Bougarel, 2005, 10–11). In contrast to the modestly successful top-down revitalisation of religion in the post-socialist space, Islam’s coming out of the private into the public sphere within the framework of the secular Turkish state from the 1980s onwards was clearly a bottom-up movement, as the religious hierarchy was under firm state control. Revitalisation took place in the form of performative acts, such as veiling and segregation of the sexes, underpinning Muslim resistance to assimilative and secular modernity (Petersen, 2012, 128–29). The polarisation between secularists and so-­ called Islamists intensified during the 1980s. Covering the hair shifted from being a traditional and spiritual act into becoming a political performance. By the early 1990s, the türban22 and the long, loose overcoat accompanying it had become a symbol of political Islam which started to challenge secularism. In reaction, the ban on wearing religiously inspired clothing in schools and state offices was strictly enforced (Sandıkcı & Ger, 2007, 192–94). Secularist elites perceived the türban as an indisputable symbol of religious militancy and a threat to the fundaments of the Turkish Republic (Sandıkcı & Ger, 2005, 61–62). The battle between Islamists and secularists began, was intensified by the rise to power of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the early 2000s, and is still ongoing. Both camps may consider themselves victorious – the Islamists have achieved many of their aims, but the state has remained secular. A development allegedly common to the Orthodox countries is the revival of church-based religiosity. Numerous churches and monasteries have been restored, and new ones opened. Traditional Christian practices, such as fasting, public prayer, and pilgrimages, are finding new expression; meanwhile, churches are exploring various ways of educating children and adults. The continuing efforts of Orthodox churches to ‘church’ their populations has produced some results, with the Romanian population being the most ‘churched’ and Bulgarians the least (Naletova, 2009, 377–79). Serbia is somewhere in between. A survey on Serbia published in 2010 gives numerous examples of church-based religiosity: the introduction of religious education in public schools, priests appointed to the governing boards of public companies, the increased presence of religious content in the media, and collective baptisms of children. In addition, religious ceremonies now mark the inauguration of mayors, religious services are held in the army, a chapel was established in the main dormitory of the University of Belgrade, and public celebrations of patron saints (slava) are organised by institutions ranging from government and opposition parties to trade unions and betting and gambling companies (Drezgić, 2010, 966–67). However, some commentators see the revival of Orthodoxy as short-lived, with most indicators of religiosity declining among the younger population. David Voas and Stefanie Doebler (Voas & Doebler, 2011, 41–49) looked at differences between older and younger birth cohorts in the 2008 European Values Study. In contrast to

22

 türban – Turkish term for female head covering.

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many other surveys that have disregarded generational differences, they determined that everywhere in Europe the younger birth cohorts were generally less religious than older ones. Only in the nations that had composed the southeastern part of the former Yugoslavia – Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro, and North Macedonia – there was no sign of weakening religiosity among younger people. On the contrary, the gradient of the ‘importance of God in your life’ variable clearly pointed upwards. This was explained by ongoing nationalistic turmoil in which religion had played a part (ibid.). These crises were felt much stronger in 2008, when the survey was conducted, than a decade later. Therefore, I assume that these countries will follow the general European trend of secularisation with a temporal delay. The other countries of Eurasia Minor are already one step ahead in this regard. There is no doubt that the overall social influence of the Orthodox Church has been shaped by its deep-seated anti-modernism and political conservatism. In Serbia, for example, political elites have left sufficient space for the Church to intervene in state institutions and politics. The Serbian Orthodox Church has used its privileged status and popularity to attempt to impose its ideas and norms on the whole of society. However, it has had limited success in undermining the secular state and social values of most of the population, especially concerning the reproductive rights of women and the basic human rights of sexual minorities (Drezgić, 2015, 313). Roman Catholics constitute a constitutive ethno-religious group in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and religious minorities in Montenegro, North Albania, and Kosovo – all within a relatively short distance from Croatia, which can be seen as a kind of Catholic heartland on the fringes of the Balkans. In the post-socialist Catholic areas, Croatia ranks prominently in terms of religious revival. Most available data on religiosity places Croatia, and neighbouring Herzegovina, among the countries with a relatively high level of religiosity. The percentage of people who identify themselves as firmly religious increased from 41% in 1989 to 78% in 2004. However, this is clearly less than in most of the Orthodox countries; in addition, only a medium percentage  – 26%  – attended religious services at least once a week in 2008.23 Values ranged between 68% in the county of Dubrovnik and 14% in the county of Istria (Marinović Jerolimov & Zrinščak, 2006, 281–86; Marinović Jerolimov & Jokić, 2010, 308–24). If we disregard Turkey, it seems justified to assume that the impact of religion on society in general has increased in the past quarter of a century; however, the available data urges us to conclude that its impact on sexual behaviour, gender relations, and the visual representation of masculinities and femininities has remained low – especially in the Orthodox countries. What churches in this region have achieved is to confirm existing or latent conservative (patriarchal) attitudes but not to revise behavioural patterns and bring them in line with religious dogmas. For example, the deeply entrenched concept of the complementarity of gender roles, common to the

 http://www.atlasofeuropeanvalues.eu/new/zieeuropa.php?year=2008%20 July 2020.

23

(accessed

on

15

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Abrahamitic religions, perfectly fits the patriarchal concept of gender roles. However, rigid religious guidelines dissolve when it comes to issues like abortion, premarital sex, or the application of methods of birth control. Hence, two models of religious practices crystallise from the studies discussed above: the Christian (Catholic and Orthodox) model that emphasises orthodoxy over orthopraxy, combined with desecularisation from above, and the Muslim (Turkish) model that emphasises both orthopraxy and orthodoxy combined with desecularisation from below. While the first model can be applied to the situation in the post-socialist Balkan and South Caucasus countries independently of their being predominantly Christian or Muslim, the second model fits the situation in Turkey. To illustrate their relevance for the visualisation of femininities and masculinities: the first model permits the media production of ‘porno-chic cultures’ whereas the second supports ‘veiling-chic cultures’. By way of conclusion, this chapter has described and analysed some important producers, agents, and transmitters of visualisation from realia to utopia: various media, the advertising sector, the fashion industry, and religious institutions. In all countries, it is evident that television is the medium that reaches the majority of the population (almost 100%) and therefore is by far the most attractive for companies and governments with an interest in advertising products and achievements. Television – and especially TV advertising – is still the most influential producer, agent, and transmitter of images constitutive for femininities and masculinities. Its liberalisation around 1990 paved the way for the establishment of porno-chic and veiling-chic popular culture. While television has been dominant and will remain dominant in the foreseeable future, other media have either celebrated an upswing or lost attractivity. The Internet is booming. Although it became accessible for the mass of the population relatively late – around 10 to 15 years ago, a little earlier in the Balkans and Turkey than in the South Caucasus – its use for advertising and other business and entertainment purposes like e-commerce and social media has grown rapidly. Markets are not yet saturated. Whereas television is attractive and affordable at almost all social levels and for all generations and genders, the Internet is still the domain of youth and of all genders equally. Among older users there is evidence of a male bias, which is particularly clear in the Western Balkans. From the perspective of individual users, the Internet, compared to television, offers the advantage of enabling the creation of blogospheres with their myriad opportunities for performative self-presentation. Magazines, daily newspapers, and even more drastically, the cinema industry, are on the decline in the sphere of visual business presentation and entertainment. The magazine and newspaper sector have come under mixed domestic-international management, with magazines mainly under international influence and newspapers predominantly run domestically. Many, if not most, leading (women’s) magazines are distributed by Western publishers who have licensed their titles to local companies. The latter produce issues with mixed international and local content. American magazine Cosmopolitan, which addresses successful, independent women aged between 20 and 50, and is distributed in almost every country of Eurasia Minor, is a

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prime example. Daily and weekly newspapers are either in local ownership and run locally, or are owned by Central European news players such as Springer, WAZ, and Ringier, which operate with local management. Many print versions of newspapers have disappeared or are kept alive by government-sponsored advertising. A further aspect that should be highlighted is the role of Hollywood as a dream factory. Across Eurasia Minor, the entire film sector – whether television or cinema, or both  – is dominated by Hollywood productions. The TV soap opera, the still small sector of (Turkish) religious films and the rapidly emerging Internet film sector constitute exceptions. Domestic film productions, even if supported by European funds, are far from able to meet demand. In sum, the actors discussed above, in a variety of ways and to different degrees, not only integrate and interlock (1) realia and utopia, but also (2) globality and locality as well as (3) immaterial and commercial interests. 1. In order for commercial activities to be successful, actors in both porno-chic cultures and veiling-chic cultures, according to one of the central hypotheses of this book, must interrelate realia and utopia. Visual utopia must somehow meet realia; and signs of realia must be discovered in utopia. It appears that this interrelation existed only weakly in the first post-Kemalist and post-socialist years. Within this brief period, Western fashion models, visualisations of gender, advertising, and media products were taken over by, or forced onto, the emerging post-socialist societies. After a certain period that varied from country to country, Western intermediaries were partly replaced by local ones, though in the case of Hollywood cinema this was simply impossible. The dynamics that evolved in the Islamic world worked in the opposite direction. By cooperating with local producers of veiling-chic, global companies have tried to enter this new international market. 2. The local amalgamation of Western trends: this process is reflected, for instance, in the television sector. In most countries, national broadcasters now compete with many more private global and local channels. Though the situation for magazines and newspapers is different in some aspects, there are similarities in effect: print media are mainly owned by globally acting companies and run by local editorial teams. Similar tendencies can be observed in the advertising industry where more and more domestic companies work for the global cosmetic and fashion industries. In film, national film industries increasingly co-produce with Hollywood companies. Meanwhile in the fashion industry, Turkish and Bulgarian companies produce for global brands, but are increasingly establishing their own labels to profit from association with ‘fashion leaders’ such as Italy and France. 3. While the media, except public broadcasters, and the advertising and fashion industries have clearly defined commercial goals, religious institutions subscribe to immaterial interests. However, the examples reported from Turkey cast doubt on this clear distinction, as the revitalisation of Islam has resulted, among other things, in the emergence of an Islamic fashion industry that blurs these two spheres. In contrast, the post-socialist Eurasia Minor countries have not

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d­ eveloped a religion-based fashion sector due to lack of demand. The Internet plays a crucial and double-edged role because as an open, and in most countries largely uncontrolled, platform it serves commercial as well as non-commercial interests. This is one of the reasons for its current and growing impact. Moreover, the Internet is able to perfectly integrate and interlock realia and utopia, as well as globality and locality. In all three mentioned contexts, the female body as a sexualised image or as an attractive image of female modesty has moved into the centre of public attention. Not men’s but women’s bodies sell. The tabloid press and the turbo-folk and chalga economies have exploited the sexualised female body most obviously. The gendered aesthetics of the new media in post-socialism cannot be attributed to local influences alone but are also the result of an inclination towards Western models of gendered visual display. In the Western countries, however, human rights groups and women’s movements have articulated the need for more emancipated portrayals of women. This has not yet been the case in Eurasia Minor  – except in Turkey, where religion as a spiritual as well as a social and political force has been sufficiently strengthened to achieve the moral power able to counteract Western sexualised images. With this in mind, the two final chapters will investigate more thoroughly the logic behind the seemingly ever-increasing gap between veiling-chic cultures and porno-chic cultures.

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Chapter 5

Veiling-Chic Cultures

Abstract  Turkey is the centre of attention in this chapter as it was the focus of the majority of relevant surveys. Because of the rejection of Islam by the Kemalist elites, the secular state constituted an unfavourable framework for the re-emergence of religious consciousness and its bodily expressions until the beginning of the twenty-first century. The chapter is divided into four parts. The first – The Embattled Public Space – addresses the emerging controversies in secular states with considerable Muslim minorities, or Muslim majorities, between the proponents of an accentuated Islamic culture and the defenders of a secular public sphere. The second part – Depicting Femininities in Secular Islamic Countries – deals with emerging religious media and modes of advertising in Turkey. It investigates secular and religious advertising and their depictions of femininities and masculinities as well as gender representations in Turkish films, TV broadcasts, magazines, newspapers, and textbooks. The third part – Islamic Dressing and Lifestyle – oscillates between the Islamic dogma of modesty and the emergence of fashion and a fashion industry whose marketing strategies challenge religious values. The final part – New Muslim Femininity – looks at the social world of university students who consider themselves the embodiment of Islamic modernity.

The two concluding chapters will investigate two tendencies in the visual representation of femininities and masculinities that seem to be drifting apart into ‘porno-­ chic’ and ‘veiling-chic’ cultures. The split from the Kemalist and socialist mainstream, and further into two divergent styles of visualisation  – reflected in actual practice – can be traced back to the late 1980s and early 1990s. In earlier decades, veiling in the socialist states had been prohibited; in rural Turkey, the custom had remained intact but was not widespread in towns and cities where it was prohibited in public and educational services. Nevertheless, the body was covered, especially the female body, and scanty clothing was hardly seen on the streets. This development of divergent styles of visualisation calls for thorough investigation. Two crucial developments provoked the evolution of this antagonism: the liberalisation of media markets and the Islamic revival. The liberalisation of media markets opened the door for the visualisation of Western-type porno-chic culture as well as of international veiling-chic culture. Media and advertising contributed © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 K. Kaser, Femininities and Masculinities in the Digital Age, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78412-6_5

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significantly to the domestication of femininities and masculinities seen as not rooted in the core of the regional societies. Despite public adherence to secular principles in Turkey, for example, Islamic norms, suppressed in the republic for decades, increasingly began to regain ground – not so much in the villages, where they had been maintained, but especially in towns and cities and even in the metropolis of Istanbul where a new culture of veiling, veiling-chic culture, emerged. Meanwhile, the collapse of socialism and its rigid sexual morality associated with the ‘new man’ and rooted in ‘state patriarchy’ gave way to the abolishment of puritanical fashion mores overnight, which people had considered imposed, and subsequently to the establishment of porno-chic culture. It should be underlined that although these two new tendencies competed with various other forces, they became powerful because they were represented by formerly suppressed social groups, such as the Islamic bourgeoisie in the case of Turkey. In discussing these two emerging visual gender representations and their tendency to drift apart, four cultural background factors should be considered. The first is related to the character of religious revival. Whereas its impact has been rather superficial in the post-socialist countries, the revitalisation of Islam from below has impacted significantly on large parts of society. The second background factor concerns the traditions of visual representation, which differ in Islam and the two major Christianities. Whereas devout Muslims (and Jews) observe the ban on the creation of images (of God and the Prophet, as well as portraits) as far as possible even in the digital age, Christians have not been subject to this kind of prohibition since early medieval times (Kaser, 2013, 114–21). Due to this ban on images upheld by radical, traditionalist Islamic sects and due to greater emphasis on female modesty in Islam, controversy over the self-­presentation of Muslim women on the Internet has been particularly intense (Piela, 2010, 87). From this perspective, it is no coincidence that porno-chic cultures have evolved in predominantly Christian countries and veiling-chic cultures primarily among Muslim populations, and that this century-old cultural difference with respect to visual representation still plays a role at the close of the twentieth and in the early twenty-first centuries. The third background factor is the focus on women in both cultures of visual representation. Women are at the centre of critical attention, whereas the public visual appearance of men does not attract similar notice. There are numerous reasons why the female body is more often sexualised, commodified, and commercialised than the male body, which cannot be dealt with here. The fashion industry is involved in both cultures and is interested in both veiling and generous bodily display. Individual decisions for the one culture or the other are not made on the basis of economic considerations but of cultural and religious ones. The secular state leaves the decision up to the individual in the public and private domains, apart from in education and the public sector. The fourth factor is the divergent ‘ideological’ orientation of porno-chic and veiling-chic cultures. Porno-chic cultures were and partly still are characterised by their unconditional Western orientation in fashion, consumption, body presentation, and sexual ideals after the breakdown of socialism. It should be emphasised that this

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enthusiasm for ‘the West’ lacks any religiously motivated references since relevant forces in Orthodoxy have traditionally been rather sceptical of ‘harmful’ influences from non-Orthodox Western societies. Veiling-chic cultures, on the other hand, have no reason to refer to Western models, and Muslim religious leaders and activists frequently reject any ‘advice’ from Western feminists or human rights activists. While devout Muslims can refer to their own deep-rooted traditions, secularists of the same country, in absence of a long secular tradition, cannot avoid referring to Western models of femininity and masculinity. This has opened a new dimension of the imaginative East-West divide. Almost no region of the Balkans, of the South Caucasus, or of the Near and Middle East with a significant proportion of Muslim population has remained untouched by attempts to introduce reforms to Islamic cultural and religious life. Two significant intellectual reform movements took shape: the first from the late nineteenth century to the First World War, and the second around the middle of the twentieth century. In the light of the progressing colonisation of continents beyond Europe by European Christian powers, Muslim intellectuals initiated the first wave. The Islamic powers, that had previously proudly controlled significant parts of the Eurasian and African continents, were increasingly exposed to non-Muslim colonial powers. Intellectuals inaugurated a debate on the ‘Europeanisation’ of Islamic cultures and how to integrate elements of Western modernity. The de-veiling of Muslim women was among the suggested measures. Of the Muslim countries, the early Turkish Republic most rigidly implemented the proposed reform agenda by transforming the country into a laic state. Social forces that distanced themselves from Muslim culture, and religious culture in general, inaugurated the second wave. Theoreticians of socialism identified religion as one of the fiercest enemies of social progress and as an obstacle to the transformation of traditional society, including gender relations. While the South Caucasus countries came under the direct control of the Soviet Union after the First World War, most of the Balkan countries were exposed to indirect control through the mechanisms of the socialist Soviet empire after the Second World War. The socialist state not only banished the exercise of religion in the private sphere but started to supress Muslim culture in spheres that were considered crucial for the establishment of gender equality. Traditional practices of dress, and especially the veiling of women, caught the attention of socialist governments. Their aim was a thoroughly secular society based on the idea of the ‘new man’ liberated from all negative legacies of the past. The visual representation of men and women in public was of central importance; thus, the issue of the veiled woman was spotlighted. This was decades before feminist movements and far-right governments in Western states began to problematise veiling – Western feminists because they considered veiling a symbol of oppression and far-right politicians because they wanted to eliminate signs of Islamic culture in the public space. However, in Islamic but secular countries like Turkey, veiling is discussed from other angles and therefore central parts of this chapter will deal with the Turkish issue. However, what does veiling actually mean? First of all, the term is misleading because it is often associated with the covering of the entire body or the complete

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covering of the head. However, the practices of covering (female) bodies in Islamic cultures differ around the world, and diverse terminologies are used to describe them. For the purpose of this study, it should be sufficient to differentiate between three modes of ‘veiling’. Wearing (1) a scarf that covers only the hair and the neck, (2) a combination of scarf and overcoat that covers the whole body except the hands and face, and (3) a combination of scarf, overcoat, face veil, and a net over the eyes (see, for example, Breu & Marchese, 2000, 26–34). In the case of Turkey, only the first two modes of dressing are widely accepted. Practices of covering the female body have changed over time, from country to country, and under various legal – religious and secular – limitations and pressures. In Sarajevo, for instance, before Austro-Hungarian troops occupied the city in 1878, veiling the face had served as a status symbol rather than a religious one. It was part of costume among the urban elite, and was practised also by Jewish and Christian women. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, women of the upper and middle classes in Bosnia and Herzegovina wore a wide and loose overcoat in dark colours, the feredža (ferece in Turkish), together with scarves or veils that covered the face except for the eyes. By the end of the nineteenth century, the feredža had been almost completely replaced by the more fashionable zar, which completely concealed a woman’s face with a black transparent veil. A decree by the grand mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Džemaludin Čaušević, at the beginning of the twentieth century allowed Muslim women to walk with uncovered faces in public. Poorer urban women wore long headscarves and did not veil their faces. Likewise, young girls from the upper social classes only wore headscarves. From the First World War onwards, face-veiling among Muslim women started to decline as many women of the elites started to follow Viennese and Parisian fashions (Mesarič, 2013, 25). This short excursion into history demonstrates that the issue of veiling must always be contextualised. The main context for this chapter is Turkey, a secular state which constituted an unfavourable framework for the re-emergence of religious consciousness and its bodily expressions until the beginning of the twenty-first century. The chapter is divided into four parts. The first – The Embattled Public Space – will address emerging controversies in secular states with considerable Muslim minorities, or Muslim majorities, between proponents of an accentuated Islamic culture and the defenders of a secular public sphere. The second part – Depicting Femininities in Secular Islamic Countries – will deal with emerging religious media and modes of advertising in Turkey. Secular and religious advertising and their depictions of femininities and masculinities will be investigated, as well as gender representations in Turkish films, TV broadcasts, magazines, newspapers, and textbooks. The third part  – Islamic Dressing and Lifestyle  – oscillates between the Islamic dogma of modesty and the emergence of fashion and the fashion industry whose marketing strategies challenge religious values. The final part – Muslim New Femininity – will look at the social world of university students who consider themselves the embodiment of Islamic modernity. Turkey will be in the centre of attention because it has been the focus of the majority of relevant surveys.

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The Embattled Public Space The veiled woman and the meaning of veiling must be considered in the wider relational context of their embeddedness in relations of power and resistance that are enacted in the urban environment, at the national level, and even globally. In our case, the veiled woman should be seen in the context of a secularised country, Kemalist Turkey, where modernity for decades was positively linked with Western constructions of femininity. This kind of modernity has been questioned by Islamic media which, on the contrary, claim actual modernity for the veiled female body. After decades of the suppression of Islamic culture and prioritisation of secularism in countries with prominent Islamic heritages such as Albania, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Turkey, the public space has become embattled with re-emerging Islamic femininities and masculinities and dominant secular ones on opposite sides. This chapter will shed light on this controversy, which constitutes more of an interaction between family members than a bitter confrontation between two hostile, warring groups.

Veiling As is widely known, veiling is of pre-Islamic origin. In ancient Mesopotamia, almost all cultures (Sumerian, Assyrian, Akkadian, and Babylonian) advocated covering the head and/or face of women for various reasons. Thus, the meaning of covering was also subject to change and did not necessarily mean, as is usually thought, the seclusion of women. In Assyria, like in Sarajevo thousands of years later, wearing a veil symbolised membership of the elite. The ancient Greeks and Romans also advocated covering the face and hair when leaving the home, which aimed to shield women from public view. In the Jewish tradition, future brides were veiled and married women covered their heads to symbolise their noble status and chastity; prostitutes walked with their heads uncovered. Today, some orthodox Jewish communities still require women to wear wigs to hide their hair, and an uncovered woman may not be present during the conduct of religious rites. In Christianity, the custom of women covering their hair during worship has a long history and continues in some parts of the world; veiling the head is mentioned in the First Epistle to the Corinthians (middle of the first century A.D.). Nuns belonging to some of the Catholic and Orthodox orders still cover their hair. The Virgin Mary is traditionally depicted wearing a blue cape and with a long veil (Bosankić, 2014, 24–25). Islam has cherished the cult of hair through the centuries, which today seems to have turned into a ‘damnation of hair’. Hair appears to be associated with shame and therefore should not be revealed (Cvitković, 2016, 52–53). Women’s dress is treated in the Qur’an in very general terms. There is no single verse that specifies the obligation to wear specific clothing in particular circumstances. Both men and women must cover their intimate areas (men from the navel

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to the knees), and wear clean and neat clothes that do not show the figure. The only difference is that women may wear luxury materials and jewellery, though men are not explicitly prohibited from doing the same (Bosankić, 2014, 25–26). Two passages in the Qur’an address proper behaviour between men and women who mix outside kinship bonds, including directions on dress and adornment (Sandıkcı & Ger, 2005, 63; Vojdik, 2010, 666–67). Thus, veiling removes the physical attributes and beauty of women from the gaze of men, reserves their beauty for the private sphere of the home, and thereby protects men from temptation. The Qur’an does not mandate any more specific types of dress. The opponents of covering believe that the verses of the Qur’an do not mention covering the head and the face at all, but discuss concealing the intimate parts of the body. However, the various schools of Islam prescribe in stricter and less strict manner the style of veiling, requiring that the hair, head, and neck be covered, and a long cloak or dress worn loosely over the clothes. Feminists, on the other hand, have challenged whether women must cover their hair, and have entered a debate with Islamic scholars over specific styles of covering. As already mentioned, covering practices have differed across time, place, and class, and as a result of particular religious interpretations (Vojdik, 2010, 666–67).

Unveiling By the late nineteenth century, the question of female dress in general, and of the face veil in particular, had come to occupy an important place in a developing indigenous critique of existing gender relations across the Muslim world. This movement laid particular emphasis on education for women and the reform of family law, especially as it related to polygyny, child marriage, and the male right of repudiation. As mentioned above, a first wave of modernist gender discourse swept the region between the late nineteenth century and the First World War. From the early 1920s, this discourse gained power across much of the Muslim world as a variety of regimes seized state control. In the interwar period in Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Balkans, veiling became a target of government disapprobation, was publicly ridiculed as backward, and officially discouraged in a variety of ways. The item in question was not the headscarf but the face veil. Everywhere, these anti-veiling campaigns were presented as emancipatory. Yet state sponsorship of the authoritarian anti-veiling campaigns led to the intense politicisation of this issue. For the secular elites, unveiling was a signifier of modernity; for its opponents, it was symptomatic of a loss of cultural integrity and a weakening of religious feeling. Both sides invoked Islam in their quests for legitimacy, swapping verses from the Qur’an (Cronin, 2014, 2–9). In late 1934, the Turkish state stepped up its campaign for changes to women’s dress, directly after women received the right to vote. Abandonment of the veil was presented as a prerequisite for the full exercise of women’s political rights. Nevertheless, the Turkish parliament passed legislation that banned veiling only

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half of a century later (ibid., 19). The University of Ankara was the first university to take disciplinary measures against attempts of students to attend lectures wearing the veil in the mid-1960s. Similar measures spread to other institutions (Öktem & Uzun, 2012, 208–12). Following the military takeover on 12 September 1980, the ‘Dress and Appearance Regulation’ was issued. This regulation specified how public employees should dress when on duty and prohibited men from wearing moustaches, beards, or long hair; mini-skirts, dresses with a low neckline, and headscarves were banned for women. The regulation applied to university students as well as to civil servants. It coincided with an increase in the number of enrolled students who covered their hair and provoked considerable legal and Islamist opposition to the state (Kılıcbay & Binark, 2005, 295, FN 1; Arık, 2011, 59). With the return to multi-­ party democracy in 1982, the topic of veiling re-emerged in politics. In the following years, attempts to approve headscarves for students eventually failed, and a law passed in 1997 effectively prohibited the Islamic veil in higher education nationwide (Öktem & Uzun, 2012, 208–12). In a ruling in November 2005, the European Court for Human Rights upheld the Turkish ban on headscarves in all universities, both public and private. The ruling claimed that the headscarf ban affirmed the principles of secularism and gender equity embodied in the Turkish constitution (Ghodsee, 2010, 166). However in 2013, 12.3  million Turkish citizens, supported by the ruling Party of Justice and Development, signed a petition calling for the abolishment of the prohibition on covering the head in state institutions, schools, and universities. The petition considered the ban a violation of women’s rights. The prohibition of the hijab in schools and state institutions was lifted in the same year. What has remained in force is the ban on wearing the hijab in the army and the security services (Cvitković, 2016, 54). Interestingly, from the very beginning, changes to men’s appearance were considered the more crucial issue by the Kemalist leadership. The Kemalist demand of trimming or shaving of beards was particularly condemned and attacked by believers as mimicry of the infidel. Beards, like women’s veils, possess complex meanings, signifying status, and religious commitment. During the nineteenth century, Islamic scholars produced a huge body of literature declaring that shaving was strictly forbidden, yet by the 1920s, with the advance of modernism, the controversy over the beard had subsided. Modernism’s sartorial triumph was not yet complete, however, and the European hat was generally avoided. Nonetheless, the eager embrace of European men’s fashion from the neck down served to emphasise more than ever the widening gulf separating the modern man from the still veiled, and therefore backward, woman (Cronin, 2014, 12–16). Thus, for the new regimes after the First World War, unveiling was not the top priority. On the contrary, men’s dress attracted the attention of the authorities, implied the most drastic reforms and fiercest resistance. The reforms of male dress codes in the Balkans, Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan in the 1920s were not primarily concerned with gender but included a gender dimension by pursuing the idea that changes to women’s lives could best be advanced by mobilising patriarchal forces within society – women would unveil when encouraged or permitted to do so by their fathers and husbands. In Turkey, peaked caps were introduced to military

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uniform, and in November 1925, the National Assembly passed the ‘Hat Law’ banning the fez. The law was popularly perceived as an attack on religion; hats with brims were believed to be an infidel garment preventing the worshipper’s forehead from touching the ground during prayer. It provoked widespread opposition which was dealt with by draconian ‘Independence Tribunals’. A number of men, including low-ranking clerics, were executed (ibid.). In the Balkans, male dress was also targeted by nationalists and modernisers, even earlier than female clothing. In late nineteenth-century Bulgaria, the fez, worn by Christian notables as well as Bulgarian Muslims, came to represent collaboration with the Ottoman state. Not only modernity but Bulgarian nationalism demanded that it be abandoned in favour of the hat or the sheepskin kalpak of the peasants. The first half of the twentieth century saw a long struggle to eliminate the fez and the turban among the Muslim minorities. When the communist party came to power after the Second World War, it renewed the campaign against both the fez and the veil, but the change of head covering for men was the clear priority. The policy was implemented, though not without provoking considerable resistance (ibid.). In Albania, the government issued a rather ineffective first ban on the veil and full-length cloak for women in 1929 following the political change from republic to monarchy. In the following years, the authorities used various means to promote this decision: propaganda in newspapers, lectures, and, above all, insistence on compliance by women working for the state. In 1935, punitive measures against women who did not respect the ban were reported. Finally in 1937, the parliament passed the ‘Law on the Ban of Face Covering’ which forbade women from concealing their faces totally or partially. Nothing was said about the cloak. However, due to popular opposition the veil did not totally disappear, and the authorities were instructed not to act brutally when executing the law. Islamic scholars in Albania largely belonged to the modernist camp. The government went so far as to claim that the anti-veiling policy had actually been suggested by the leadership of the Muslim community itself (ibid., 20, 22). Socialist clothing reforms were launched in the early years of the Soviet Union and soon extended to Azerbaijan and Georgia. In Azerbaijan, the removal of the veil took place on a small scale and was voluntary until 1928. The debate on veiling had begun in 1926. Although there was no decree prohibiting women from wearing the chador (a full-length cloak), various party and state organisations issued directives to prevent the chador from being worn in public places. In February 1929, a directive forbade men from wearing religious dress and women from wearing the chador when visiting the cinema. Chadors were also forbidden for school teachers and students, and party members were advised to unveil their female relatives or face penalties. In 1929, more than 10% of the country’s total population reportedly threw off the chador (Kamp, 2014, 218–20). Yet many women felt compelled to retain some form of veiling. Instead of the enveloping chador, a compromise was found in the form of a headscarf, the kalagaye, originally part of Azeri folk costume (Tohidi, 1999, 105). In Georgia, only the western province of Adjara had, and still has, a Muslim population. Like in Azerbaijan, a campaign was started to abolish the woman’s chador (Barkaia, 2018, 35).

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In Bulgaria, the socialist government only passed a law ordering the removal of the face veil in 1984 (Neuburger, 2014, 260). Previously, in the 1970s, state campaigns to eliminate the veil had aimed to modernise the dress of Bulgarian Muslim (Pomak) women by inventing a new aesthetic meaning for the female body. But local Muslim women perceived the modernisation campaign as oppressive and against their cultural values, collective identity, and personal dignity. The concept of ‘nudity’ proved a powerful counterpoint to the liberating idea of ‘beauty’ offered by socialist officials. A woman donning an urban-style, knee-length dress was likely to be considered nude. Local women responded to the initiatives by carefully balancing the modernisation discourses with their own conceptions of nudity and shame (Nahodilova, 2010, 43–44, 47–48, 50). The next step was the infamous assimilation campaign of 1984–89 conducted by the Bulgarian government. It resulted in a complete ban on the full-length cloak, baggy trousers, and a plethora of other ‘Turkic’ articles of clothing. The decree was reversed in 1989 after the socialist regime was toppled by popular resistance. In the post-1989 newspaper Miusiulmani (Muslims), published by the Bulgarian muftiate, all images of women were with veiled hair and covered necks. However, the new mode of veiling was far from a return to past traditions. The veils shown in this newspaper resembled those worn in modern Turkey (Neuburger, 2000, 175–76, 184; Neuburger, 2014, 260–63). In Yugoslavia, veiling the face was forbidden in 1950. Even earlier, the wives of officials and members of partisan families began to go uncovered (Ballinger & Ghodsee, 2011, 16). Bosnia and Herzegovina was the first republic to ban face-­ veiling. Soon afterwards, similar laws were adopted by Serbia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia (Mesarič, 2015, 116). The socialist unveiling campaign had the backing of the Islamic religious authorities and presented many women with opportunities they had not had before, as removing the veil was linked with access to education and employment opportunities. Although the wearing of headscarves was never prohibited, women who continued to do so were discriminated and marginalised, especially on the labour market. Covering the hair was practised throughout the socialist period in rural areas, but was unusual in urban settings and considered unattractive and backward (Mesarič, 2013, 17–19). In Macedonia (today: North Macedonia), the campaign to prohibit the face veil began when ‘progressive elements’ demanded a ‘Veil Law’ and their signatures were sent to the Council of the People’s Republic. The law was passed in January 1951, and implementation began immediately. Fearing reprisals, Muslim women discarded the veil within a period of 1 month and with minor exceptions (Achkoska, 2004, 188–90). In Kosovo, many women who resisted were made jobless. Some 20,000 to 30,000 women were forced to remove their veils. Still, many opposed the ban; some women would go out only at night, while others removed their daughters from public schools (Sadriu, 2015, 189). The interim findings show that in both waves, Muslim men were the primary targets of the ‘redressing’ campaigns. The new clothing codes for women were not pursued with the same consequence and aimed at removing face veils and the overcoat but not the headscarf. The headscarf continued to be worn by many women in

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the countryside, but was considered inappropriate in urban contexts. The 1990s, however, witnessed a revitalisation of Islam and of Islamic women’s clothing in Turkey as well in the previously socialist sphere. This intensified the contest over the public space regarding Islamic and secular modes of dress, particularly in urban contexts and in media representations of femininity and masculinity. The biggest tensions arose in Turkey, not only because the country is by far the largest Muslim country in the region, but also because it had maintained secularism as an exclusive state doctrine for decades. The ideology of secularism had a strong impact on the clothing style of Muslim women, not in the light of feminism but of modernism. The visual and performative representation of the model secular woman did not necessarily aim to emancipate women in the public and domestic spheres, but was primarily an ideal that would contribute to the modernisation of the country. As a side effect, it would contribute to the emancipation of women, too.

Re-veiling The centrality of the female body in the Kemalist representation of secularism offered women new roles in the public and private spheres and their emancipation from religion. The desired revolution in the relationship between religion and women was emphasised through the changing role of women in the national public sphere. For the modernist project, this sphere was secular in character, and consequently religion was confined to the private domain of the individual. In this vein, clothing, or more specifically the unveiling of women, was emblematic of the project of Turkish modernisation (Cindoglu & Zencirci, 2008, 796–98). First re-veiling initiatives emerged primarily at universities throughout the 1980s and 1990s (ibid.). The question of permission to wear the headscarf in public institutions and especially in schools and universities pertains to other countries with a Muslim population, too. Azerbaijan, for instance, has a ban on headscarves in publicly funded schools and universities. Although there is no law that directly prohibits the wearing of the hijab, a ministerial decree passed in 2011 regulates the clothing of students in schools and institutions of higher education. Despite the government’s insistence that women and girls are free to wear the hijab in non-school settings, this ban has caused occasional protests demanding a change to the law to allow women to wear hijab in schools as well (Ismayilov, 2015, 105; Mehrabov, 2016, 7). This issue is not so pressing in the country’s capital where few women veil. The presence and appearance of women in Baku’s public life have altered dramatically since Soviet times. Women in trousers, even in skin-tight jeans and mini-skirts, do not evoke reactions as they would in many other Muslim cities. Women’s smoking in public has become commonplace. In addition, women frequent Western-style restaurants, cafés, bars, and nightclubs, also in male company (Heyat, 2006, 403, 406). In Albania and Kosovo, young girls have been excluded from secondary schools for wearing the veil since approximately 2010. In Kosovo, as in North Macedonia, the main Albanian parties rejected a demand by Islamic religious institutions that

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religious education be introduced in public schools (Bougarel, 2005, 10). In Kosovo, where the vast majority of women over and  around the age of 60 still wear the headscarf, with many choosing the full overcoat when leaving home, the current controversy over the headscarf ban in schools and universities began in 2009 with an administrative order emanating from the office of the then education minister, Enver Hoxhaj. The order placed a blanket ban on all religious symbols in public schools, including the headscarf. Hoxhaj cited the secular constitution as the basis for his decision. Sporadic protests took place in Kosovo in opposition to the administrative order. The biggest of these, in 2010, saw over 5000 people gather on the streets (Sadriu, 2015, 189–90; Perkins, 2012, 559–60). In Bulgaria, the controversy over headscarves in public schools began in 2006, when two Pomak girls in the eastern Rhodopes were suspended from their secondary school in Smolyan for wearing headscarves in addition to the mandatory school uniform. Finally, after an intensive public debate, the anti-discrimination commission charged with deciding the case ruled against the girls and their supporters. The commission, headed by a Turkish chair, fined all the parties in the dispute for their attempt to ‘incite discrimination’. Both the school and the regional inspectorate were fined for allowing the girls to wear the headscarves for as long as they did (Ghodsee, 2010, 175–80). In 2010, the problem of religious clothing in Bulgaria emerged in another public sphere, triggered by the photograph requirements for new personal identification documents. The issue was raised by the mufti of Smolyan. Following the complaint, the problem spread to other regions and Muslim women all over the country insisted on being photographed with a headscarf entirely covering the hair and with a face veil. Finally, a compromise was found. Citizens should have their photograph taken without a hat or headscarf unless they explicitly requested wearing one; in this case, at least 1 cm of hair and both ears should be visible. Apparently, this compromise satisfied the women’s demands (Kosseva & Kyurkchieva, 2012, 267–68). In Bosnia and Herzegovina, religious education was semi-mandatory during the 1990s war. Today, wearing the veil is permitted in secondary schools and universities but not in public offices. In September 2015, based on a legal provision establishing the neutrality of judicial institutions, the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina ruled that judicial officials and employees of judicial institutions were forbidden to wear religious symbols as well as to practise any religion during their working time. However, parties to the dispute may expose their religious symbols. The country’s Islamic community reacted strongly to that decision (Cvitković, 2016, 56–58). The media constitute another area of contest in the struggle to occupy the public space. In the early 1980s, Turkey saw an increase in the number of Islamic newspapers and periodicals and, following the abolition of the state broadcasting monopoly in the early 1990s, a whole range of Islamic audiovisual media was launched, adding a new dimension to the media scene in the course of the 1990s. Especially in Islamic women’s magazines and fashion catalogues, sections for ‘veiling fashion’ appeared along with corresponding advertisements. The mainstream media in Turkey, predominantly liberal and supportive of Kemalist ideology, regarded this

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fashion segment as an ‘exotic’ phenomenon and covered Islamic fashion shows as tabloid news (Kılıcbay & Binark, 2005, 286). This observation indicates that the issue of veiling is discussed differently in Turkey than in many Western countries. As mentioned earlier, in Turkey gender relations in the public sphere and their visual representations are related to debates over modernity, whereas in Europe and the United States, feminism plays a central role in such discourses. In Western media, the participation of women in society, the issue of emancipation, and the material as well as symbolic empowerment of women are the major concerns in debates over the depiction of veiled and unveiled women. In Turkey, such issues are more embedded in modernisation discourses than in feminist ones (Özcan, 2010, 42–43). Moreover, the headscarf controversy in Turkey is part of a discussion about the boundaries of citizenship rights. This is why debates over the public visibility of the headscarf have been, and still are, much more comprehensive in Turkey than in other European countries and extend to the public sector, courts, and secondary schools, as well as to parliament (Baban, 2014, 645, 649). In a country where the cultural and political dividing lines between secularists and conservatives seem increasingly stark, the growing visibility of garments for Muslim women has become a talking point, just like abroad. These clothing items are considered in line with Islamic principles and understandings of modesty. In Islamic circles in Turkey, the question of who draws the line between modesty and sexiness has become increasingly pronounced (Genç, 2016, 47). Secularist and feminist circles, on the other hand, do not highlight the presence of female nudity in the press as sexism, but more as an endorsement of freedom from Islamic conceptions of gender and female modesty. Images of scantily clad women in the press therefore have not become the object of a feminist debate on the sexualisation of the female and the dignity of the woman’s body. In other words, the eroticisation of the public sphere is seen to endorse the existence of freedoms within it; thus, feminist reactions to discriminatory media content have been very limited. Any secular feminist voice bold enough to bring up the issue would probably have been blamed for taking sides with the Islamic government (Özcan, 2010, 42–44). In conclusion, the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first have witnessed the wrapping and unwrapping of male and female bodies according to principles rooted in religion and culture in countries with a Muslim population. Contemporary debates about the veiling and unveiling of Muslim women should not detract from the fact that the first group meant to adopt items of Western dress were men. In the first half of the twentieth century, men were considered to constitute the public and were expected to substitute the traditional head covering, the fez, with a Western-style hat. Governments anticipated that women would follow the example of men. However, the visual transformation of Muslim femininities through Western styles of dress assumed a different meaning. Unlike men, women were expected to expose more of their bodies in public. And while men’s uncovered hair had no sexual connotation, women’s hair did. For many, starting to uncover women’s bodies was a violation of modesty which is strongly defended in Muslim culture.

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In countries with a Muslim population, most of the Kemalist and socialist restrictions on the Islamic representation of femininities and masculinities were withdrawn in the course of the 1990s, and conservative Islamic images started to reoccupy the public sphere in various ways. This section has sketched some facets of the contradictions in the visual content of secular and religious media and traced their overlaps. The inconsistencies that emerged between modest Islamic dress and veiling-chic culture have been of similar importance and will be detailed in the following discussion.

Depicting Femininities in Secular Islamic Countries Despite uninterrupted Islamic governments in Turkey since the early 2000s, the state has remained secular and non-religious media and advertising still constitute the mainstream. However, religious media and modes of Islamic advertising are gaining ground. The opening parts of this section will investigate secular and religious advertising and differences in their depictions of femininities, followed by a discussion of gender representations in television, films, magazines, newspapers, and textbooks. The culture of veiling-chic is not in the foreground here, but rather the issue of how Islamic subcultures of the 1980s struggled for emancipation and recognition in a state that had secularism as one of its founding pillars. In the centre of this struggle, Islamic organisations and activists, investors, and pressure groups competed for access to the most important media in order to establish public forums to give a voice and face to Islamic culture. From a political Islamic perspective, utopia consisted of conquering the public sphere where religious women could freely express their culture and religiosity. Turkey is not the only country in the region to struggle with this type of tension between a secular state and public display of Islamic culture. What makes Turkey unique, however, is that around 96% of its population are Muslim.

Advertising and ‘Tesettür’ Companies Fashion advertisements in Islamic women’s magazines can be divided into two consecutive phases. Early advertisements clearly contrasted with secular mainstream advertising and coincided with the period when clothing companies discovered a potential market for veiling fashion. The major feature of these marketing images were unidentifiable female faces in place of photographs. The absence of the face may have been due to the Islamic prohibition of the depiction of the human body, or reflected a denial of female sexuality in order to conceal female bodies from the male gaze. In some advertisements, the face of the model, whether an actual photograph or an illustration, was literally blanked out. The face was either obscured by a black or white space, or the image was cropped to remove the head altogether. The

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pious woman remained unidentifiable; individual identity was dissolved within a uniform and anonymous Islamic identity. This first phase dates back to the late 1980s and concluded with the first fashion show for veiling garments organised by the Tekbir clothing company in 1992. The show marked the beginning of the second phase of Islamic clothing advertising, characterised by the deployment of marketing strategies to create fashion brands and images. Now, photographs of models appeared in the majority of advertisements. Underlying this shift was the transformation of the subject to whom clothing companies wished to appeal. The image of the pious woman was replaced by image of the modern consumer (Kılıcbay & Binark, 2005, 289–90; Sandıkcı & Ger, 2007, 195–201). Consequently, advertising by tesettür companies evolved from being mere product announcements into sophisticated representations of lifestyle. The earlier image of the pious woman offered neither glamour nor beauty and lacked the aesthetic appeal that advertising employs to draw people into the lifestyles it promotes. Such advertisements emphasised the moral necessity of covering, and the pious woman emerged as courageous and committed enough to look different from uncovered women by wearing tesettür clothes. Her femininity required her to cover, and covering confirmed her conviction. While indoctrination produced the appeal of the ‘pious woman’, the ‘modern consumer’ was to be seduced by the beauty of the covering. The new emphasis on the beauty and aesthetics of tesettür indicated a different conceptualisation of the target consumer – a woman who is defined more by her taste than her religiosity. As the Islamic upper class began to accumulate wealth, the classificatory and discriminatory potential and use of consumption started to become more prominent than its homogenising and effects (Sandıkcı & Ger, 2007, 195–201). The fashionable veiled woman emerged as a new type of woman in Turkish urban society, celebrated by the Islamic bourgeoisie as representing a new femininity and apostrophised by the secular elite as reactionary and rural. The choices of this fashion-conscious woman soon started to oscillate between her commitment to religiosity and to style. Over time, the clothing styles of urban middle and upper-­ class tesettürlü women became more sophisticated and refined. Long transparent shirts over tight tops, stiletto shoes, trendy designer handbags, and other accessories became markers of status and taste. The unassuming pious woman pictured in an unflattering pose seemed like the antithesis of the subjectivity demanded by fashion marketing and conspicuous consumption (ibid., 198–201). The oscillation between religiosity and fashion had implications for marketing strategies and how far companies should take Islamic ethics into account. While relatively easy to respect in catalogue design, Islamic ethics posed a challenge for fashion shows. The policy of blocking out faces in photographs worked in print catalogues but could not be applied on the catwalk. Although many companies did not adhere strictly to the Islamic code and showed the faces of their models, fashion shows brought to the fore a series of questions about the combination of veiling and fashion (Gökarıksel & Secor, 2015, 2591). An analysis of eight fashion catalogues prepared for the 1998–9 season for some of the major Turkish Islamic clothing companies revealed their characteristics and

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similarities (Kılıcbay & Binark, 2005). Two veiling styles appeared in these catalogues. The first derived from the experience of political Islam and concealed the face with a veil. The second style displayed a variety of new modes of veiling in connection with the featured products. Parts of the hair were seen under the headscarf, and skirts were shorter than considered ‘normal.’ In some images, the model posed in an old city street using a mobile phone, indicating the offer of a modern lifestyle to women who veil. While the first style of veiling, determined by religious conviction, concealed the body, the catalogue images presenting the second style exposed more of the female body. Thus, women were not only invited to consume but became objects of consumption. These catalogues offered symbolic gratification to the consumer and associated the featured products with socially desired values. Furthermore, veiled women purchased them as fashion items in order to be able to stand out among other female members of their community and from the rest of society (ibid., 291–92). We can therefore conclude that the turn from veiling as an expression of religiosity to veiling as religious fashion took place in the 1990s, when the media sector was liberalised and competition took off in the garment industry.

Television Moving from advertising in Muslim fashion catalogues to secular and religious representations of femininities on television, it becomes evident that sexualisation is an omnipresent factor on private secular TV channels, in contrast to pious channels. Since the 1990s, Turkey’s television landscape has divided into a porno-chic and a veiling-chic camp. The first private channel, Magic Box, later Star Television, was launched in 1990. Subsequently, channel diversity grew with the opening of Show TV and Teleon, and by 1994 some 400 channels were in operation. The new broadcasting concepts introduced by these channels were quite different from the kind of television that Turkish society was used to (Karadogan Doruk, 2014, 161–62). Around 2010, 15 public, 24 private, 15 territorial, and 209 local TV channels were available (report by the Directorate General of Press and Information, 2013), with television broadcasting reaching 98% of the Turkish population (Çetin, 2015, 61). The domination of private TV channels probably had the effect of adjusting programmes to predominant domestic tastes. Here, it is important to note the influence of the popular (Latin American) soap operas on representations of scenes of sexual intimacy for the Turkish audience  – for instance, passionately kissing couples. These TV series remained uncensored and since the soap operas were of Western origin, they were instantly regarded as instances of what it means to be a modern, Western woman or man (Atakav, 2012, 53). While Turkish TV channels formerly broadcast numerous US and Latin American serials, today they are more likely to show domestic soap operas. Contemporary Turkish television programming is characterised by the expansion of domestic TV

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production since the late 2000s. This boom was triggered by conditions such as the rise of private television channels, growing corporate advertising budgets, high numbers of unemployed media and communication course graduates ready to be hired as cheap labour, and the high cost of importing foreign productions. As mentioned in the previous chapter, Turkish soap operas are meanwhile consumed over a vast territory, including the Balkans, the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, and the Asian Pacific (Orta, 2013, 565–66; Çetin, 2015, 63–64). These popular TV series are not only widely consumed but set significant examples of gendered behaviour. Therefore, models of conventional femininity and masculinity can be gleaned from them. In these series, men’s and women’s lifestyles are constructed and represented, and the sexist culture they perform is reproduced by way of collective reception. The TV dramas mirror social relationships, structures, roles, and models and have a determining part in both forming and reproducing social practices. It is thus important to understand and decipher the sexist hierarchical system communicated through this type of TV programme. Here, women live a home-centred life, mostly together with their children. This applies to women from all segments of society – both wealthy and poor, educated and non-educated. Taking good care of the children and being a good wife are depicted as more valuable than being a successful businesswoman. This sterile dichotomy locates women in the home (cooking, taking care of children, and serving food) and men in the public sphere (driving, going to coffee houses and bars, and busy at the workplace). Traditional masculine and feminine roles and sexual identities are strictly, and in an exaggerated manner, underlined by these TV series (Çubukçu, 2016, 113–14). These TV series emphasise masculinities constructed within homo-social structures such as the army, sports organisations, the world of executive finance, and the police force, and which are normalised as the plural male perspective through practices of everyday life. In scenes of the home, men watch TV, read newspapers, sleep, eat, and talk; women, on the other hand, clean, cook, serve meals, and wash the dishes. Husbands appear at the breakfast table, watch TV, or rest in the bedroom, while wives appear to be at home almost every hour of the day and are doing the housework. Men control and look on – almost like a guest in their own home. The upper-class woman, on the other hand, deals with the education of her children and the organisation of the domestic servants. In the public realm, the rich female protagonists of TV dramas engage in philanthropic activities (ibid., 117–24). Not only do these Turkish TV series reproduce a gendered division of labour with all its manifestations in the public and the private spheres, they also reproduce negative stereotypes surrounding homosexuality. Most striking is the coexistence of the ‘hidden’ and the ‘exaggerated’ bias against gays in heterosexist patriarchal language. Moreover, male same-sex inclination is used as an insult and is generally depicted as a corrupted, effeminate form of masculinity. Consequently, there is no place for same-sex identity in these series. Of course, it is possible to trace such identities in other art forms essentially based on literature or cinema film. These kinds of cultural products may enable us to follow traces of repressed sub-conscious or collective unconscious. But heterosexist, patriarchal models, roles, norms, and practices are explored as forms of inner contradiction even in these rare and

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valuable examples. In Turkish film, the homosexual does not exist as a concrete person as the collective unconscious is as afraid of gays as it is afraid of the full existence of women (ibid., 125–26). Mainstream Turkish TV production still broadcasts secular content, although the increasing impact of religion cannot be ignored. Rather than specific programmes devoted to religious topics, piety has recently been incorporated into the content of other programmes and genres. Media analysts argue that the parables told by characters in drama series operate as rhetorical strategies of moral instruction and a culture of piety. Whenever a protagonist gets into trouble, a wise male character addresses the paradoxes and intricacies of the situation through parables, and leads the protagonist to the mosque, indicating that the solution will be found in the context of Islam (Cetin & Berfin, 2014, 2473). It should also be noted that until the early 2010s, the veil was regarded as a symbol of Islamism and excluded from television. In 2012, the drama ‘Peace Street’ (Huzur Sokagi) introduced the first veiled leading character on mainstream TV. Although veiled and pious characters were a daily feature of Islamic television broadcasts, mainstream television abstained from such representations that supposedly challenged the entertainment element of TV drama. While ‘Peace Street’ broke the taboo on veiling, visual representations of religious culture in the form of characters praying or wearing the veil varied in the show’s successor series. Nevertheless, the increased performance of piety and an Islamic worldview in television dramas redefined the boundaries between the secular and religious in this medium and affirmed religious culture, previously ghettoised in the so-called pious television channels, as part of the mainstream (ibid., 2474). In this process of redefinition in television, Islam has not been a static factor; on the contrary, it has been open to re-interpretation and adaptation to modern values. There are several reasons why Islamic communities (sing. cemaat) in Turkey in particular have undergone a major change. They gained popularity during the Islamic Revolution in Iran in the mid-1980s. Originally quite radical, these groups noted the success of the moderate religious communities and embraced the same approach towards the country’s secular forces. Cemaat members who openly opposed the quasi-sacred, secular values of the republic were eliminated or remained marginal. In addition, the possibilities offered by globalisation triggered a change in attitude among the cemaats. They abandoned some of their more conservative beliefs when these were found to conflict with their promotional interests. As an illustration: TV stations belonging to the cemaats frequently broadcast Hollywood films in an attempt to increase their audience and attract new viewers, despite the fact that the messages in these films are not always in line with cemaat ideals. This approach cannot simply be brushed off as hypocrisy, since the members of these communities seem to live by their declared values with respect to a democratic and secular state, and according to the values they disseminate via films and TV shows. The stance of the cemaats on the headscarf issue indicates that the opinions of their members are far from rigid. Instead of discussing the issue on religious grounds, they have adopted a discourse that perceives any headscarf ban as violation of a

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basic human right. The cemaats seem to have internalised liberal values, even if that was not their intent (ibid.). With a view to providing an Islamically appropriate viewing experience to pious Muslim audiences, several Islamic radio and TV stations were initiated by religious orders and the Islamic communities mentioned above in the early 1990s. They were funded by, and received donations from, small and medium-sized Islamic businesses. Turkey’s first Islamic television channel, Türkiye Gazetesi Radyo ve Televizyonu (TGRT), owned by the largest conservative daily newspaper Türkiye and affiliated with the Naqshbandi order, started broadcasting in the spring of 1993. TGRT was followed a year later by Samanyolu (STV). Since the content of religious programming on Turkish television screens was previously limited to theological aspects of Islam, media professionals now explicitly identified their role as assisting the state in resolving social problems. As mentioned in Chap. 3, strengthening the family and family values plays a central role not only as a trademark of the ruling AKP government’s neoconservative identity, but also in shaping its neoliberal social policies. To compensate for deficits in the welfare and social security services weakened under these policies, the AKP government has placed the family at the centre of its social programme. By framing the family as the ideal site for providing physical, emotional, and psychological care for the elderly, the disabled, and children, government discourse has sought to devolve responsibility for assuring social protection and care to the family. Through Islamic TV shows that aim to provide guidance to audiences regarding family-related problems, Islamic television channels in Turkey aim to inculcate in their viewers ethical dispositions as well as knowledge and skills so that they can autonomously assume responsibility for administering their households and families more effectively (Kocamaner, 2017, 675–714). Mainstream Islamic channels, however, have been experimenting with and capitalising on different genres and formats that transcend conventional expectations of Islamic programming, such as studio entertainment, dramas, game shows, reality TV, and daytime shows for female audiences. A survey conducted between 2010 and 2012 showed a prevalence of Islamic TV shows aiming at strengthening the family, coinciding with a proliferation of discourses on family crises and the ‘decline of family values’. According to conservative Muslim political actors, the common symptoms of the crisis of the family include an unprecedented increase in divorce rates, a rise in the number of young people delaying marriage and reproduction, tendencies towards premarital and extramarital sexual affairs, as well as a steady decline in the number of families providing home care for the elderly. Securing the role of men as head of the household, recent family-related government policies have relied on women’s traditional reproductive, childrearing, and caregiver roles and encouraged them to be homemakers rather than to seek employment. Family-­ related Islamic TV shows have clearly been aligned with these government-­ sanctioned, hegemonic gender roles and the gendered division of labour within the family. Because television formerly limited representations of Islam to issues pertaining to faith and worship, secular Turkish audiences consider this recent

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expansion in the scope of religious programming as a form of counter-secularisation aimed to Islamise society (ibid.). Ultimately, moderate Muslim communities play a more important role in redefining secularism than the radical ones. Thus, the increasing visibility of the cemaats is unlikely to pose a threat to the regime. On the contrary, the shift away from Turkish hyper-secularism may be interpreted as a normalisation process which may further curb marginal ideas that oppose the regime (Bilgili, 2011, 142–43). A similar tendency to move away from strict secularism and absorb pious motives, while upholding mainstream secularist principles, can be observed in cinema film.

Film As mentioned in Chap. 4, Turkish cinema  – film production and attendance  – reached its historical peak around 1970. The following decade was marked by the rapid decline of cinema visits caused by the emergence of TV in 1968. The military coup of 12 September 1980 and ensuing severe censorship deeply affected the cinema industry in Turkey. Film production decreased even further, and audiences almost stopped going to the cinema at all. This crisis led to various changes and transformations in the industry and the emergence of a new style of film-making. New art film productions, in contrast to the classical narrative based on dialogue, introduced a new cinematic language and aesthetic prioritising the visual over the verbal. This opened the way for the use of silence in various forms and functions as a complementary tool of aesthetic style (Güçlü, 2016, 1–14). Meanwhile, the second wave of the feminist movement in the 1980s blurred the cultural representation systems that supported traditional gender roles, leading to the questioning of traditional masculinity that continued to generate the prevalence of male narratives, male characters, and male points of view in the new cinema. What linked feminism and film was the enforced ‘depoliticisation’ after the 1980 coup and the ability of feminist movements to come into being precisely because feminism was not perceived as politically significant. Thus in a parallel movement in cinema, films began to focus on women’s issues and lives in order to avoid the political. Feminist consciousness, the awareness and critique of power relations between men and women, opened up the opportunity for women to become social actors (ibid., 67–69). In the mid-1990s, the new Turkish cinema experienced a remarkable boom as both commercial and art film productions saw success at the box office, gained visibility, and received critical acclaim at both national and international festivals. After a decade of women’s films, and after the women’s movement allowed an opening for gender representations beyond the predominant narrative, the mid-­1990s witnessed the emergence of films that addressed masculinity more than ever before, directly and indirectly, and from various perspectives, particularly by placing male subjectivity at the centre of the story. Some Turkish film scholars see this shift as a ‘response’ to the women’s films of the 1980s and to the changing gender order in

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Turkish society. The new success formula for the commercial Turkish melodrama was to take an underlying thematic binary opposition and ‘polish’ it with a Hollywood-type brush, while art film productions introduced new and diverse ways of film-making and storytelling to Turkish cinema audiences. Specific to this flourishing of cinema film was the emergence of an unusual new representational form: the silent or inaudible character. These were characters who, for some reason, did not or could not speak. Equally remarkable was the fact that this on-screen silence had a gender aspect, since, for the most part, the muted characters were female. The Turkish cinema industry has always been male-dominated. However, the gender imbalance had never before been so intense in terms of representation and narrative. Consequently, this period in Turkish cinema is known as ‘macho cinema’ (Çakırlar & Güçlü, 2013, 167–68; Güçlü, 2016, 67–69), not unlike the contemporary macho cinema in the post-Yugoslav space. The silence of the female character functioned as a device to emphasise the crisis of the male characters and of the gender order in general by making the male protagonists, and thus the audience, confront their anxieties and fears (Dönmez-Colin, 2010, 72–75; Suner, 2010, 163, 173–74; Atakav, 2012, 50–53; Çakırlar & Güçlü, 2013, 167–68; Güçlü, 2016, 1–14, 81, 109). Of course, ‘macho cinema’ did not encompass all of Turkey’s film production. Various films presented ‘deviant’ masculinities, showing classical masculinity in a process of crisis and reappraisal. A series of films made in the 1990s and 2000s portrayed gay, lesbian, and transvestite characters and their lives within the traditional patriarchal order (Arslan, 2009, 259–61). Queer cinema was new to Turkey and emerged one to two decades earlier than in the post-Yugoslav space. Thus, as alternative sexual identities and freedom of sexual orientation gradually became visible in alternative culture they left an impression on cinema film, but film-makers tended to evade issues that would create controversy and endanger wide distribution. Until 1990, lesbianism had been primarily exploited in comedies; serious films with lesbian characters began to appear only in the 1990s. Atıf Yılmaz’s Düş Gezginleri (Walking After Midnight, 1992) is considered the first ‘realistic’ lesbian film, showing two women making love. Yılmaz claimed that his film focused on the distribution of power in society and not on the lesbian relationship, thus drawing criticism from feminist groups who argued that he was reducing woman-to-woman relations to an exercise of power. Whereas lesbian content possessed intrinsic commercial value, appealing to the fantasies of men, man-to-man relations remained taboo. Turkish cinema cast gay men only as marginal characters, whose parodying of feminine traits was intended to produce humour. Only in the second half of the 2000s did several courageous works appear that exposed this kind of sexual taboo (Dönmez-Colin, 2016, 263–64). Religion has been even more effective as an agent in Turkish cinema than same-­ sex love. Historically secular, Turkish cinema has more recently reflected culturally endorsed behaviour with respect to religion in line with the traditional values of the conservative family (ibid., 266–69). Islam has become visible in the films of this majority Muslim country in the form of religious activities and references: Islamic festivities, the sacrifice of sheep at Kurban Bayram, marriage ceremonies performed by an imam, henna parties, the sound of the muezzin calling to prayer, minarets

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towering over the cityscape, and circumcision celebrations (Dönmez-Colin, 2010, 105). In the course of the 1990s, Islamists realised that cinema could be used as a platform to propagate Islam. In a symposium organised by the Islamic Research Fund, a decision was taken to ‘Islamise’ newspapers, cinema, television, theatre, and the Internet and called on industrialists who had been building mosques to invest in media and the arts. The term beyaz sinema (white cinema) was coined to signify this new cinema movement (de Bruijn, 2013, 23–24). Originally, ‘white films’ were oriented towards reclaiming the Muslim self, perceived as having been robbed of its authenticity and heritage. The films attracted a large audience. However, the lack of aesthetic quality was a drawback in terms of establishing Islamic cinema as a genre. The melodramatic and sentimental content, the soap-opera style, the stereotypical characters, and the propagandistic and didactic approach could not maintain the interest of youth who constituted the majority of the audience. A leading Islamist magazine even denounced this new film culture as ‘Islamist arabesque’ (Dönmez-­ Colin, 2016, 266–69). Consequently, at the end of the twentieth century and the start of the twenty-first, Islamic factions, especially those who advocated a moderate form of Islam adjusted to modernity, became very active in the mediascape. At the same time, as described above, Turkish cinema witnessed a revival. These two developments converged to produce Turkish films with Islamic topics, and which were of far higher quality than previous productions and less didactic. Besides, within secular art film circles, Islam became a theme. Films such as ‘The Imam’ by İsmail Güneş (2005) found their way to a broad audience (de Bruijn, 2013, 23–24). ‘The Imam’ presents an alternative and moderate picture of Islam, as opposed to ‘the other’ created by the West and official state ideology. The main character, Emre, a former religious high school student, graduates as a computer engineer from one of the country’s most prestigious universities. He goes on long trips on his motorcycle, during which he reflects on his life. His long hair and urban habits exclude him from traditional society; however, he is also a ‘stranger’ in the city environment he lives in as he stays away from alcohol, entertainment, and social practices he considers degenerate (Önal, 2014, 211). In terms of an intermediate result, it should be emphasised here that Islamic cinema of the 1990s and 2000s never became popular because of the religious messages it transmitted, although it deployed all the clichés that usually guarantee box-office success. Nor did Islamic film successfully create the artistic language it had aimed to. On the other hand, the phenomenon of ‘religion’ was explored both by conservative directors and representatives of new Turkish cinema, even though they were not part of any specific movement such as the ‘white cinema’ (ibid., 200, 207, 210). Although television and cinema were sites that allowed the religiously motivated construction of femininities and masculinities, they did not benefit the unfolding of Islamic visuality since ethically correct action was limited and excluded activities like gambling, playing video games, eroticism, drinking alcohol, and dancing to Western music. In addition, male and female actors had to be dressed according to Islamic codes. It was thus inconceivable to graft Hollywood glamour

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onto Islamic film with all its visual considerations, prescriptions, and prohibitions. Many of the most successful Turkish telenovelas, however, have not respected Islamic lifestyle sufficiently and have frequently become victims of censorship in Arabic countries (Kaser, 2013, 12), though not in the Balkans and South Caucasus. The field of photography, the singular visual event of the still photograph, is more convenient for religious expression because of the absence of feature-length acting.

Magazines, Newspapers, and Textbooks Despite the growing influence of Islamic editors, the secular representation of women in Turkish magazines, newspapers, and textbooks still prevails. The construction of contemporary femininity and the emergence of popular feminist discourses in the 1990s are well reflected in three popular women’s magazines: Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, and Kadınca. The first two are Turkish editions of well-known international magazines. Packed with discussions of the female body and femininity, these magazines, which were widely circulated in the West from the 1970s and reached Turkey in the 1990s, sought to teach their readers how to have a desirable body and transform it into a social instrument. By doing so, these magazines contributed to the reorganisation of gender relations and the integration of a specific female identity into a gendered social space (Akanyıldız, 2015, 228–29). Although these magazines allocate a significant amount of space to body-related topics, content was never limited solely to beauty, sex, and fashion. Indeed, business life, personal development, health, travel, cultural trends, and hobbies are among the basic topics covered by these magazines. It is also important to stress that issues such as domesticity, childcare, and motherhood take up very limited space, unlike earlier versions of popular women’s magazines in which women were represented as idealised wives and mothers. In contrast to the previous magazines that located women inside the home, popular women’s magazines of the 1990s appreciated and promoted a certain type of woman: free, courageous, sociable, dedicated to her independence, and in pursuit of a career. In this respect, they provided guidelines for the construction of a type of individual who was featured in the frame of ‘liberation’. As a matter of fact, feminism was being brought into vogue more than ever before, and these women’s magazines began to give place to feminist thoughts and discussions of gender inequalities, female discrimination and oppression, thereby incorporating feminism into popular culture. Especially Marie Claire and Kadınca served as platforms where women could exchange their gender-related experiences. The magazines highlighted the emancipation of women in terms of social status and sexuality (ibid.). Historically, Islamic political identity in Turkey was built in opposition to the West, but economic liberalisation, democratisation, and Turkey’s application for membership in the European Union resulted in a rapprochement with the West in the decades around the turn of the millennium. Indeed, it is clear that important transformations in Turkey’s national identity took place over the past century. In

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particular, there were significant moves to transform identity in line with the constitutive and cultural norms of the West. These changes appear to have had an impact on corporeal experiences and attitudes to the body, too. For example, although full-­ figured female and male bodies were traditionally appreciated in Turkey, recent studies have reported that attitudes towards, and perceptions of, body shape and size are becoming very similar across European countries, including Turkey. More specifically, the slim figure has become established as an ideal, and rates of dieting are as high in Turkey as they are in other European states. It appears that Turks have adopted Western European views on body size, which in turn has resulted in high rates of body dissatisfaction and symptoms of disordered eating (Swami, 2015, 177). A survey conducted between 2013 and 2014 among 501 female university students in Ankara, ranging from 20 to 32 years of age, suggested – like previous polls – that a large proportion of the respondents wanted to be thinner and that the ideal female figure was one that was clinically underweight (ibid., 179, 187). While Turkish secular print media increasingly operate within a commercial, liberal frame, the number of newspapers, periodicals, and women’s magazines aimed at religious readers has risen since the abolishment of the state media monopolies in the 1980s and the periodic loosening of restrictions on religious expression. Islamic women’s magazines, however, do not focus on the body of the individual like their secular counterparts, but rather on the family and motherhood. The first Islamic women’s magazines were Kadin ve Aile (Woman and Family) and Mektup (Letter); both were established in 1985. The subtitle of Kadin ve Aile is: ‘Monthly home magazine’, while Mektup uses a more slogan-like text: ‘From the woman’s pen for everyone, including men and women’. A third magazine, Bizim Aile (Our Family), was published from 1988 to 1989. Its subtitle was simply: ‘Monthly women’s magazine’. Later, this magazine changed its title to Yeni Bizim Aile (The New ‘Our Family’). Kadin Kimliği (Woman’s Identity) is the newest of all, published from 1995, and has a more striking subtitle: ‘A different perspective on life’. These magazines have generally taken a critical position against modern capitalism and consumerism, seen as consequences of Western culture. Leading journalists have condemned fashion as a practice of consumer culture and an anti-Islamic ideology (Kılıcbay & Binark, 2005, 286–89). Hence, new Islamic women’s magazines faced the challenge of how to connect Islam with the notion of lifestyle. Ȃlȃ, launched in 2011, was the first Islamic lifestyle magazine in Turkey and included the topic of fashion. Starting with the slogan ‘Veiling is beautiful’, it was the first magazine to openly and proudly embrace the veiled woman. In a country where religiosity had long been culturally sidelined, this experiment might have failed had the magazine not been able to draw on the experiences of Islamic lifestyle publications in countries where Islam is a minority religion, such as the UK and the US. In creating fashion content, Muslim lifestyle media must be aware of prevailing global and local forms of fashion mediation. The two founders of Ȃlȃ, who had previously worked in multinational brand management and communication, hired a team of market researchers to ascertain the feasibility of a fashion magazine for headscarf-wearing women in Turkey, and argued that style inspiration for modest fashion transcended the tesettür industry. Brands

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should listen to women and not only to designers. Readers collaborated with the magazine to picture pious fashion in line with the visual norms of secularised fashion media (Lewis, 2015, 115, 152–59). The magazine had an impact on the way the garments were worn, discussed, and represented, and on how veiled women perceived the importance of fashion in their lives (Crăciun, 2017, 55–57). Two fascinating surveys have compared the visual representation of femininities in the Turkish secular and religious press. The aim of the first of the surveys, conducted in 1997, was to examine representations of women in Turkish religious and secular daily newspapers, and whether the representations were consistent with the ideologies the newspapers promoted. At the time of research, the secular press was dominant on the Turkish media scene; however, religious publications were increasing and appeared to be highly committed to revive Islam. The Islamic newspapers presented a fairly unanimous, homogeneous, and consistent stance in propagating their views (Hortaçsu & Ertürk, 2003, 2017–24). Three religious and three secular newspapers were included in the study. Veiling was more often the topic of religious newspaper articles, and demands for the right to veil were frequently associated with demands for justice. Also consistent with ideological viewpoints, religious newspapers more often included news about women as victims of secularists than did secular newspapers. The overall findings of the survey led to the conclusion that, unless demanding the right to veil, women were represented as rather passive and as victims by religious newspapers in comparison with the secular press. In short, religious newspapers presented a relatively condescending view of women, often victimised because of veiling, whereas secular newspapers portrayed women as active, self-confident, and outgoing. The conclusion that religious newspapers printed a lower number of items related to women, and that women appeared more often as a primary topic in secular newspapers and as a secondary topic in religious newspapers, was consistent with the endorsement of gender inequality by the religious parts of society in general (ibid., 2034). The second survey, conducted in the late 2000s, found that in quantitative terms, the categories ‘Islamic’ and ‘secular’ in regard to the visual characteristics of the studied newspapers were not characteristic. The visual similarities and differences between the newspapers rather depended on the journalistic style of the publication. However, in terms of the depiction of gender, quantitative and qualitative differences, as well as similarities, between the Islamic and secular newspapers were apparent. Differences in how men and women were portrayed were much more distinct in radical Islamic newspapers than in the others. Islamic newspapers, whether radical or moderate, did not depict female and male nudity; Islamic newspapers associated women more explicitly with the family than did secular newspapers; images of women and girls wearing headscarves constituted a larger percentage of the female images in Islamic newspapers; and the radical Islamic newspaper Vakit included more images of bearded men than all the other publications (Özcan, 2010, 164–66). The number of pictures of women in Turkish newspapers overall, whether secular or Islamic, is surprising, especially compared to the Balkan countries. This can only be explained by the deeply entrenched secular Kemalist tradition. According to

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a report compiled in the middle of the 2000s, around 75% of news about women was accompanied by photos. Turkey had an extraordinarily high percentage compared to other countries worldwide in terms of publishing photographs of women. With 83% around 2005, Turkey scored second highest among the 76 countries mentioned in the report (ibid., 64). Comparisons between Turkish Islamic magazines and newspapers and similar publications from other countries are difficult or even impossible due to the lack of comparative literature. One of the few exceptions is recent research on Bosnia and Herzegovina’s most important Islamic women’s magazine, Zehra (named after one of the Prophet Muhammad’s daughters), launched in 2001. The magazine is the main media product of Kewser, a prominent women’s NGO.  Kewser was established in 1994, in the middle of the war, with the goal of helping women and children to learn about Islamic spiritual values. Kewser sees Muslim women as the pillars of the family, entrusted with transmitting and sustaining Islamic prescriptions and ways of life. Articles on politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina are written by men, frequently in rough and radical language. They blame the secular state and society for declining values, and for accepting moral values that the West imposes on the country (Spahić-Šiljak, 2014, 193–96). The cover pages of the women’s magazine feature young and beautiful Muslim women who have chosen to wear the hijab and to be active in society. Although the majority of Bosniak women do not wear the hijab, and recent research suggests that they do not find it crucial for their faith, Zehra promotes the face framed by the hijab as the ideal female image. Hijabi Bosniak Muslim women, in particular, serve as markers of the internal and external boundaries of the Bosniak nation. They are considered ‘true believers’ and ‘keepers of morality’ and reinforce the boundaries between Muslims and non-Muslims through wearing the hijab and living by the code of conduct (haya) that accompanies it. Hijab fashion is also promoted in public during the cultural festival known as Mošus Pejgamberof, organised by the Kewser organisation. Kewser choir members wear stylish hijab dresses as they perform religious songs. The organisation also stages a fashion show each year to give Muslim women the opportunity to display their creativity and beauty within the confines of Islam (ibid., 185). Besides religious newspapers and magazines, religious textbooks have a significant impact on patriarchy-oriented gender roles in the family as well as on social life. This is especially relevant in Bosnia and Herzegovina because of the close correspondence between religious and national identities. In addition, religious textbooks serve conservative aims through the visual representation of gender. Based on a study concluded in 2008, which analysed textbooks for the first four grades of elementary school published in the previous 10  years in certain cantons of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the author determined that the textbooks were embedded entirely in male language. The topics were dominated by male figures and illustrations contained masculine images in strongly dichotomised gender roles (Spahić-Šiljak, 2008, 63–74). Almost half of the page space consisted of picture supplements, especially for the first two grades. Solitary female images appeared less and less with each advancing grade. Most of the images were related

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to family roles: daughters were more often shown in connection with the family than sons, mothers more often than fathers. The mother was represented as the paradigm of a virtuous life (Spahić-Šiljak, 2013, 127–29). All the textbooks published by the Orthodox church for religious education in state schools of Bosnia and Herzegovina were written by male authors; three quarters of the images were of men, 5% of women, and 22% of men and women together. These percentages were similar for books associated with the other two religions. In the case of Catholic textbooks, the percentage of male images was lower and that of gender-mixed pictures higher than in the Orthodox books. Regardless of religious confession, women were mostly portrayed in a family context, oriented towards children and the household. The dominant female traits were patience, obedience, gentleness, sensitivity, compassion, and devotion. The dominant male characteristics depicted in these images were intelligence, courage, strength, responsibility, and leadership. Thus, the main message communicated by the religious traditions in Bosnia and Herzegovina was that motherhood and childrearing were a woman’s destiny. Men were expected to support women in the fulfilment of their tasks, but not to share the responsibility and obligations of family life (ibid.). In conclusion, the depiction of femininities in the print media of secular Muslim countries, exemplified by the case of Turkey, has been characterised by an emerging but porous borderline between pious and secular media. While pious media avoid depictions of nudity or of men and women not properly covered, the secular media use images of nudity as evidence of liberalism and secularism and as a sign of resistance to religious restrictions. Paradoxically, feminist movements in Turkey are stopped from speaking out against the media exploitation of the nude female body because they do not want to be attached to the pious camp which accuses the secular media of commercialising the female body. Criticising the commodification of women can be seen as acceptance of religious morality. Another paradox lies in the fact that although the religious camp has accused secular politicians and businesspeople of selling out the country by exposing women to Western capitalism, the emerging pious fashion industry cannot avoid operating within the framework of a liberal market economy. Islamic clothing has lost much of its plain modesty on the path towards utopia in Turkey. But since in Islam orthopraxy constitutes an important factor, visual representation cannot be divided from performance, nor realia from utopia, and vice versa.

Islamic Dress and Lifestyle Along with the politicisation of Islam, an Islamic ‘consumption-scape’ emerged in the 1990s. With the accumulation of wealth in a growing economy, an Islamic bourgeoisie with a taste for conspicuous consumption emerged. A specialised market for Islamic goods was the consequence. Opened mainly under Arabic names, new shops began to offer a wide array of headscarves and overcoats. The new Islamic bourgeoisie and nouveau riche was conservative in values, but avant-garde in its

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consumption practices. Islamic businesses progressed rapidly and began to compete in almost all sectors of the economy. These businesses created not only an alternative market for religious parts of the population, but also a consumer segment that had money to spend on such goods. Soon a wide variety of products positioned as ‘Islamic’ and ranging from holiday accommodation, clothing, and decorative objects to food became available to the religiously oriented middle and upper classes (Sandıkcı & Ger, 2005, 61–62). Islam allows the pursuit of material aspirations as long as they are integrated with moral principles such as generosity, sharing, giving to the poor, and fairness vis-à-vis the disadvantaged (Sandıkcı & Ger, 2001, 147–50). Entrepreneurs of religiously conservative backgrounds benefitted from these opportunities. They strengthened their position on the market, formed new business partnerships, and began to compete with the established economic elite in almost all sectors. For the average citizen, the most visible sign of change was the increasing number of veiled female students at the university gates. The fact that more women were seen wearing headscarves in public gave an indication of the extent of vertical social mobility reached in Turkey. The desire of the children of religious families to enter higher education was generated by the rapid social changes and compounded socio-political stress. The ruling secular elite considered the so-called ‘türban problem’ a threat to the regime; and hence it rapidly became one of the most important issues in the country. At the same time, the tastes and preferences of the new middle class separated this group from the dominant Turkish elite. Hotels, holiday villages, exclusive gated communities, country clubs, and cafes emerged to cater specifically to the upscale Islamic lifestyle of this bourgeoisie (Demir et  al., 2004, 168–73; Gökarıksel & Secor, 2010, 49–50; Crăciun, 2017, 315–16). In particular, Turkish veiled women have become actively involved in what they perceive as ‘lifestyle-enhancing’ pursuits like luxury consumption, fashion, cosmetics, gastronomy, arts, travel, home decoration, fitness, and sports. Women’s consumer preferences are visible in the new Islamic lifestyle trends and forms that have rapidly emerged in Turkey, including conservative fashion magazines, tesettür fashion shows, Islamic soap operas, luxury homes, home decorations in gold and silver, Muslim haute couture, green pop, Islamic poetry, Islamic yacht tours, and alternative shopping platforms (Sehlikoglu & Karakas, 2016, 161). The first Islamic hotel, Caprice, was established in 1995 (ibid., 162). In 2016, 37 Islamic hotel brands and 75 Islamic hotels already operated throughout Turkey. They offer guests high-quality alcohol-free bars, halal (permitted according to Islam) food, women-only pools, recreation rooms, and other halal entertainment options. More importantly, these hotels provide a wide range of experiences for Muslim women and families by responding to their aesthetic as well as their spiritual needs while maintaining halal etiquette. They attract conservative families, especially during the month of Ramadan, with the promise of spiritual fulfilment combined with family relaxation. Some hotels have experimented with innovative concepts such as lighting the sea and shore until pre-dawn meals (ibid., 158–59, 165). Pious dressing, especially for women, has celebrated convincing success since the early 1990s in the increasingly liberal religious climate of post-socialism and post-Kemalism. Islamic dress and way of life entered this dynamic period in line

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with the dogma of modesty and in the absence of fashion, style, and branding; in the meantime, Islamic clothing is dominated by a fashion industry that refers to Islamic values but is shaped by marketing strategies that appear to contradict religious values. Studies of the new veiling phenomenon in various Muslim communities underline a number of common features. Most notably, this is predominantly not a return to older traditions of veiling and the confinement of women to the home, but a voluntary act of self-assertion in adopting a form of dress that signals respectability (through an image of modesty and chastity) while a woman leads an active public life. Women often refer to the greater degree of mobility in the public space and the freedom from male harassment they have enjoyed since adopting Islamic dress. A veiled woman in the public space is presumed to signal distance to unrelated males, thus warding off any unwanted approaches. Studies point out that today’s Islamic dress, far from being traditional, reflects innovation by the younger generation of women who use change of clothing to accentuate their identity and respond to a changing world. The changes in form and meaning associated with the veil affirm its political nature and connection to identity politics in the region (Heyat, 2008, 366). In descriptions that focus on the veiled subject herself, veiling is usually understood as a system of control that removes a woman from the gaze of men, limiting her visibility in the public space and protecting her honour. From this perspective, the veil has been read either as preventing women from experiencing themselves as subjects or as an interruption of the male fetishisation of women’s bodies. Despite the range of psychoanalytic interpretations, the veil is generally understood to negate women’s participation in the scopic realm. Instead of casting the veil as something that blocks the gaze or removes women from the field of vision, feminists have suggested looking at how the veiled subject maps herself within the field of the gaze (Gökarıksel & Secor, 2014, 178–79). The veiling of women is the most visible symbol of the Islamisation of Turkish in everyday life. Central issues are the control of women’s sexuality and the social separation of the sexes. Islamists have imposed beards for men and taboos on promiscuity, same-sex relations, and alcohol consumption, and defined new moral practices as part of an Islamic way of life. In the second half of the 1990s, apart from insistence that female students should be permitted to cover their hair at universities, Islamists demanded the allocation of spaces for prayer in public buildings, the segregation of the sexes in public transport, and the censorship of erotic art (Göle, 1997, 53). As discussed above, the veil is of pre-Muslim origin, has assumed various meanings in the course of history, and reflected various ideologies. Western media tend to lend support to the belief that all women who cover their hair do so to express religious and therefore political convictions. However, the scarf or veil is employed in a variety of contexts – from marriage customs to fashion – and is open to a range of interpretations. Its use does not necessarily denote strong religious attachment or anti-secular beliefs. It is an important part of popular culture and covering the hair conveys a series of complex meanings far beyond political agitation (Breu & Marchese, 2000, 26). For a pious woman, the act of veiling is essential and must be performed as an informed and deliberate gesture.

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Fashion-conscious Muslim women manage desire and display virtue through a distinctive form of Islamic dress consisting of a long, loosely tailored coat, generally in a pastel colour, and a large silk matching headscarf decorated with abstract motifs that vary with each fashion season. The scarf entirely hides the hair and neck and usually, though not always, the shoulders and bosom. The scarf may be worn without a coat, usually with suits or dresses that conceal the body. Tesettür is more than a style of clothing; it is part and parcel of a lifestyle that ideally encompasses a religious-cultural code of behaviour based on the segregation of men and women, and the prescription of appropriate spaces for the movement of male and female bodies in public places and in the home. In addition, this code regulates interaction between men and women and affirms the authority of fathers and husbands over daughters and wives (White, 2002, 206). In Turkey, around 70% of Muslim women covered their heads around 2010, a percentage that varies widely depending on region and class. Unlike, for instance, women in Afghanistan who primarily wear the burqa – a black or dark-coloured garment that covers the head, face, and body except for the hands – less than 3% of women in Turkey cover entirely. In Turkish, this form of Islamic attire is called çarşaf. Turkish veiled women (tesettürli) feel that the çarşaf represents an implicit criticism of tesettür fashion which stands out in comparison to conservative covering and to the dress styles of the secular public. They distance themselves from women who wear the çarşaf by claiming for themselves the position that Turkey’s secular elite has long denied them – that of the authentically Turkish, modern, and socially integrated citizen. Tesettür women see themselves as modern, republican women who can rightfully stake a place within the Turkish republican vision, in contrast to the allegedly pious çarşaf women (Vojdik, 2010, 667; Gökarıksel & Secor, 2013, 105–6). Although the Islamic rule of modest dressing applies to both men and women, tesettür has come to connote female dressing in particular. The underlying assumption is that women tend to arouse the sexual desire of men rather than vice versa. Therefore, women should conceal those parts of the body that draw the male gaze. The code of modesty rests on two contradictory assumptions: (1) woman is weak and needs to be protected from threats to her honour; (2) she has strong sexual impulses which threaten the honour of males and the integration of the group. Because women are instructed to not appear attractive, sexy, and seductive, dress is likened to a ‘house’ that maintains privacy and keeps men and their desires at bay. A woman clothed according to tesettür is seen to safeguard her dignity, honour, and chastity. Although transgressing tesettür is not considered a major sin, maintaining it is widely regarded as one of Allah’s commands. In addition to modesty, two further aspects should be considered: (1) fabrics and manner of dress may not stimulate arrogance and vanity; (2) squandering money on clothing and consumption should be avoided. Luxury and reckless spending are seen to be wasteful, and Muslims are instructed to refrain from showiness and waste (Sandıkcı & Ger, 2005, 63–64). The headscarf issue was at the margins of political discourse in Turkey until the late 1950s. Women in rural areas continued to conceal their hair with various forms of traditional coverings. This was hardly seen in the urban public space. However,

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with the rapid social and economic transformations of the 1950s, accompanied by large-scale migration from rural to urban areas, this picture changed drastically. As cities absorbed intense migration from the small towns of Anatolia and many of these migrants joined the urban labour force, they became visible as political actors. Contrary to the belief that modernity would erase traditional belongings, religious and ethnic identities grew stronger and demanded recognition in the public sphere (Baban, 2014, 644). Migrant women played a central role in veiling controversies in Istanbul. Rural migrants have a lower social status, different experiences of migration and understandings of veiling. Thus, in the case of Istanbul, the practice of veiling has been marked by shifting ‘regimes of veiling’, i.e. specialised ‘dress codes’ or sets of hegemonic rules and norms that affect the meaning and enactment of women’s veiling choices. The rules and norms themselves are produced by specific constellations of power. With time, women’s decisions to veil or not to veil became modulated through the experience of city life. Some veiling regimes were enforced, such as in university examination rooms where the headscarf was prohibited, while others were purely informal. These veiling practices contributed to the production of urban space and shaped women’s experiences of mobility in the city. As women travelled in and out of different informal covering regimes, they acted as markers and they were marked. They became actors in the sense that their personal clothing and mobility choices largely created and normatively enforced informal regimes of veiling (Secor, 2002, 6–9). At least three groups of women who wear the headscarf can be identified, along with related ideologies: (1) traditionalists, who live in the rural areas and follow a ‘traditional’ village-oriented lifestyle; (2) fundamentalists, who primarily live in urban areas and cover the body with a veil or a plain, voluminous black garment (çarşaf) which completely obscures the shape of the body, and who in addition cover the head, hair, neck, and shoulders with a separate headscarf; (3) the Islamic urban middle class which follows fashion and values style and choice of clothing (Breu & Marchese, 2000, 26–34). In contrast to the first two categories, the third category – women of the Islamic urban middle class – are not only interested in looking fashionable but also in developing new visions of an Islamic femininity which they are ready to share. These women are usually well educated and know about alternative Islamic femininities unfolding on a global scale – whether in Muslim or non-Muslim countries.

New Muslim Femininity University students are especially representative of this urban social category because many of them embody a new interpretation of Islamic lifestyle and a new Muslim femininity. Muslim female students were among the first women to request the right to wear the headscarf in public institutions, grounding their right to access to education in human rights discourse and underlining their democratic right to

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enter university campuses wearing the veil. They represented a cultural-social movement in the sense of embodying resistance against the republic’s early foundational discourse which envisioned that religion and associated ‘backwardness’ would fade away with modernisation. However, the daughters of the new urban Muslim middle class rejected this definition of modernity, and instead developed an alternative modernity that involved religion. Moreover, they demanded the right to be visible in the public sphere in general. The state confronted their quest by arguing that secularism required individuals to leave their religious beliefs in the private sphere, and that secularism meant that individuals would not carry any symbol of religious affiliation on the body (Cindoglu & Zencirci, 2008, 796–98). Young veiled women who are uncomfortable with the stereotypes attached to Islam in Turkey distinguish themselves from the traditionally religious population as well as from radical Islamist groups. They yearn to freely express their individualism as has been the prerogative of the ‘secular majority’ in Turkey until now. Some of these urban religious women may be politically active, but they are generally in favour of recognition by state institutions rather than interested in pursuing isolated lifestyles based on religious values. They want to see tolerance and concessions on the part of the government rather than a radical change in the entire socio-­ political system. Indeed, around the millennium the veiled university students had the potential to be pioneers of change in urban Turkey by claiming their individuality and space within the city. They constituted a credible threat to the process of marginalisation and isolation of expressions of identity other than those legitimised by the republic and the conventional outlook of its representatives. The students’ individual struggles offered a collective opportunity to halt further segregation and alienation in the Turkish metropolis (Genel & Karaosmanoğlu, 2006, 474–78, 485). Apart from the headscarf, contemporary Muslim female consumers can now choose from a proliferation of styles, despite admonishment by orthodox Islamic observers. Fashion clothing is available in the form of tunic and trouser combinations (shalwar kameez), suits, formal wear, casual wear, sportswear, bridal dresses, maternity wear, and haute couture. A variety of styles cater to different tastes, age groups, socio-economic classes, and life stages. Colours, patterns, and cuts vary greatly, from very bright colours, bold patterns, and tight-fitting clothing to more conservatively designed items. Fashion is under constant scrutiny as to whether or to what extent it is ‘Islamic’. The collections change at least seasonally, in line with national and international fashion trends, and designs are often adapted from the catwalks of the global fashion meccas of Paris and Milan (Gökarıksel & Secor, 2009, 8). The aestheticization of the ‘proper’ veil of the Islamic revivalist movement has resulted in a wider range of products than ever before. The full-length and loose-­ fitting overcoat of the 1980s has been supplemented or largely replaced by a variety of styles. Today, only elderly women, women of lesser means, and women from very conservative backgrounds wear overcoats that resemble those worn some four decades ago. Many veiled women regard them as outdated and tasteless. The spectrum of colours has been expanded with a vivid palette replacing muted tones. The range of fabrics has also diversified to include opulent silks as well as denim, linen,

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and cotton. The headscarf has been modified as well, becoming smaller and more colourful or being replaced by a monocoloured rectangular shawl. However, the requirement that the headscarf completely cover the hair, forehead, ears, and neck has largely remained consistent (Crăciun, 2017, 53). The headscarf in Turkey has become a fashion article and has disrupted the linear and structural reading of the relationship between Western fashion and modernity, complicating the notion that there is no space for fashion and modernity in Islam. For some covered women, veiling as part of the new Muslim femininity is anything but a traditional practice; in addition, the headscarf’s fashion relevance is at least as important as its religious and political dimensions. Thus, the Islamic headscarf does not necessarily make the wearer ‘non-modern’. The tension between ethics and aesthetics points towards different expressions of modernity which are subject to the logic of fashion and capitalist production (Sandıkcı & Ger, 2005, 77–78). The adoption of several items of fashionable dress designers have adapted well to the need for Muslim women to obscure the figure and cover the hair. Designers have transformed fashionable dress into ensembles that are unique to their subculture and that set them apart from mainstream culture. These garments are always worn with a coordinating headscarf. The ensembles distinguish veiled Muslim women as a group that does not deny fashion but follows the rules of dress appropriate in its social community (Breu, 2004, 111–17). Just as it takes power to stigmatise veiling, it takes power to destigmatise it. In the case of tesettür, destigmatisation succeeded because of the potency of personalisation and the aestheticization of new veiling along with a concurrent ‘othering’, or counter-stigmatisation, of ‘indecent’ or ‘open’ clothing. While tesettür was constructed as the morally and aesthetically superior choice, its advocates discredited some secular styles of dress and the over-sexualised femininity they connote. This interface between stigmatisation and de-stigmatisation indicates the fragile boundary between the stigmatised and the normalised and their embeddedness in shifting power structures (Sandıkcı & Ger, 2010, 32). In the context of the rise of fashionable veiling in Turkey, veiling did not simply mean blocking the male gaze but instead has been a way of mobilising a visual regime, one that enacts its own aesthetics and ethics. Veiled women are not invisible; they are visible in a particular manner and are active participants in producing that visibility (Gökarıksel & Secor, 2014, 185–86). The new tesettür fashion plainly has something to do with being ‘chic’, ‘glamorous’, and a discerning consumer. This new fashion in Turkey helps us to understand the relevance of new Islamic capital in the formation of a contemporary Muslim identity that is neither ‘rural and traditional’ nor ‘fanatically radical’. Ways of living Islam are changing in the face of urban experience. Thus, being modern in Turkey is no longer associated with being secular or restricted to a narrow definition of ‘Western’. More and more veiled women have appeared at universities since 2013, when the veiling ban was lifted. They speak contemporary, urban Turkish and have contributed to the formation of a new platform for urban fashion. No longer are the notions of ‘progress’ and ‘civilisation’ restricted to the strict dichotomy of ‘traditional’ versus ‘modern’ symbolised by the sharp distinction between ‘covered’ and ‘uncovered’. The new Muslim

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woman in Turkey carries considerable potential to transform the role assigned to her by Atatürk’s modernisation project on the one hand, and the rigid parameters of orthodox Islamic ideology on the other (Genel & Karaosmanoğlu, 2006, 474–78, 485; Sandıkcı & Ger, 2007, 190). In conclusion, there is clear evidence of the impact of religion and religious culture on the visual presentation and representation of femininities and masculinities among Muslim populations in the region. However, we should not ignore two important facts. 1. All the Muslim countries in the region, as well as the countries with a high percentage of Muslims, have a secular past  – regardless of whether socialist or Kemalist – and are secular states based on secular constitutions. Therefore, the core debates on the presentation and representation of femininities and masculinities do not circle around religious arguments but around the worldly issue of human rights and whether the latter can legitimise the wearing of religiously approved clothing in public institutions, from judicial courts to educational institutions. Beyond this, the debates almost exclusively focus on women’s proper or improper presentation and representation. Men are almost completely left out of the discussion because the ‘men’s question’ was solved early and rigidly in favour of the secularist stance. The ‘women’s question’ was to be solved automatically following the resolution of the former, but this did not occur. 2. Islamic clothing has become an immensely significant commercial factor of global dimensions. Meanwhile, the use of this type of dress oscillates between its original religious purpose – to underline modesty and obscure the figure – and its value as attractive fashion. The latter does not exclude the former, and vice versa. It appears that individual approaches to wearing Islamic clothing unfold in the expanding zone between these two poles. The commercial aspect of veiling-chic is underlined by the fact that some leading global fashion retailers have absorbed Islamic fashion, including sportswear, into their brands and Islamic clothing is no longer considered a niche business. Turkey has been the focus of this chapter, justified by the fact that the country comprises the largest Muslim population in the region. Analyses show a significant discrepancy between women’s presentation (performance) in public and their representation in visual media. Whereas around 70% of Turkish women wear headscarves – percentages vary depending on factors such as urban or rural environment, social class, and sociocultural background  – the mainstream media continues to adhere to the guidelines of the Kemalist past. The massive emergence of Islamic women’s magazines, newspapers, TV stations, films, and advertising, alongside the maintenance of secular visual culture, provide evidence for the assumption that porno-chic and veiling-chic cultures can mutually exist without severely harming one another, but also without significantly impacting on each other. In the past, religiously loaded visual representations of femininities and masculinities were rejected by the Kemalist and the socialist regimes and supressed by their respective elites. In addition, the socialist governments rejected eroticism because of its nimbus of capitalist exploitation of the female body, whereas Kemalist

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leaders had few objections because eroticism signalled Westernism and secularism. However, things changed considerably around 1990. Eurasia Minor was exposed to a revival of religiosity among its population as well to the conditions of the market economy, globalisation, and digitalisation. The combination of these simultaneously emerging factors had enormous effects on the political, economic, social, and cultural situation of the region’s countries – not to mention the conflicts and wars that led to the break-up of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. Naturally, these rapid changes, rearrangements, and reconceptualisations did not stop in front of the population’s everydayness and have had repercussions on gender and on generational and reproductive behaviour. Research has described the new configuration of everyday gender relations as repatriarchisation or retraditionalisation and, justifiably, coloured the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries dark, if not black, for women. Chapter 3 has provided qualitative and quantitative evidence that indicates newly established realia  – a strengthening of patriarchal discourses as concerns qualitative considerations, and uneven alignment with Western European patterns regarding quantitative and demographic perspectives. This picture has become more complicated because in the digital era the power of the visual has increased significantly as all media are touched by digitalisation – traditional media as well as new. Very frequently, they display the often trivial realia of femininities and masculinities; however, at least as often they present their utopia. Our lives are formed by the textual and increasingly by the visual. Realia are probably better reflected by the textual and utopia more convincingly by the visual. Visual evidence clearly documents that Muslim femininities in Turkey have started to abandon the tesettür modesty of the 1980s and early 1990s. Tesettür has become fashionable and veiling-chic is a global phenomenon – not only that, it is an expression of the representatives of a new Muslim femininity who self-confidently reject the sister of veiling-chic, porno-chic.

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Chapter 6

Porno-Chic Cultures

Abstract  The emergence of porno-chic in Eurasia Minor and its local adaptations are the focus of this chapter. The term ‘porno-chic’ is not limited to certain types of garment or their absence, but refers to the trend of visual presentation and display of body features in as pronounced a way as possible. The chapter begins with an overview of the visual representations of femininities and masculinities in socialism characterised by asexual models of women and traditional male attributes linked to providing protection, earning a living, and striving for a better life. The second section investigates the stereotypical construction of femininities and masculinities in various media of the two post-socialist decades, from film to religious magazines as well as TV commercials and print media advertisements. The third section elaborates on advertising and post-socialist femininities and masculinities; the fourth section deals with new femininities and, briefly, masculinities, with ‘the beauty’ and ‘the adventurer’ as dominating figures. The closing part of this chapter presents the results of the bibliometric analysis conducted for this study, which constitute the key to the main conclusions. One hundred survey results were screened using content-­related bibliometric analysis, thus achieving mixed qualitative-quantitative exploitation of the available scientific documentation. The global dimensions of veiling-chic culture might surprise many in the West, but the diffusion of porno-chic culture across large parts of the world does not. The emergence of porno-chic in Eurasia Minor and its local adaptations are the focus of this chapter. Originally, porno-chic referred to the representation of pornography in non-pornographic art and culture and its post-modern transformation into mainstream cultural artefacts for a variety of purposes including advertising, art, comedy, and education. Porno-chic also found its way into mainstream fashion in the form of visible G-strings, belly shirts (also known as crop tops), and other controversial garments such as FCUK1 T-shirts, around 2000 (Duits & van Zoonen, 2006, 104–6; McNair, 2002, 61). In this chapter, the term porno-chic is not limited to the 1  The contrived acronym for a fashion company – French Connection United Kingdom – allowed the creation of a logo that looked like a common expletive at first glance (Duits & van Zoonen, 2006).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 K. Kaser, Femininities and Masculinities in the Digital Age, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78412-6_6

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mentioned types of garment but refers to the trend of visual presentation and display of body features in as pronounced a way as possible. The chapter begins with an overview of the visual representations of femininities and masculinities in socialism characterised by asexual models of women and traditional male attributes linked to providing protection, earning a living, and fighting for a better life. The second section investigates the stereotypical construction of femininities and masculinities in various media of the two post-socialist decades, from film to religious magazines as well as TV commercials and print media advertisements. The third section will elaborate on advertising and post-socialist femininities and masculinities; the fourth section will deal with new femininities and, briefly, masculinities, with ‘the beauty’ and ‘the adventurer’ as dominating figures. The closing part of this chapter will present the results of the bibliometric analysis conducted for this study, which constitute the key to the main conclusions.

Visual Gender Presentation in Socialism Due to obvious divergences, it is not an easy task to summarise the visual presentation of femininities and masculinities in all the socialist countries over seven decades – in the case of the South Caucasus countries – and four decades in the Balkan region. However, the picture becomes relatively uniform if Yugoslavia and Albania are excluded from our horizon: Yugoslavia because of the country’s break with the Soviet Union in 1948 and its new political course between East and West, and Albania because of its rift with the Soviet Union and rapprochement with China in the early 1960s. The remaining socialist countries under consideration belonged to the Soviet sphere and followed Soviet guidelines concerning fashion, beauty, sexuality, femininity and masculinity, and advertising.

Fashion, Beauty, Cosmetics, and Sexuality Starting with the crucial issue of fashion in socialism, socialist authorities had a rather ambivalent relationship to anything that resembled Western haute couture. On the one hand, fashion was ideologically incompatible with socialist ideals as it was considered decadent and bourgeois; on the other, it was deliberately employed as an ideological tool in the shaping of the ‘new socialist man’ and used to inculcate socialist moral values and virtues. From the outset, the socialist regimes in Eastern Europe were not even entirely comfortable with the term fashion itself. Various other terms were circulated along with or in opposition to the word fashion, such as ‘good (or sound) aesthetic taste’, ‘style’, or the ideologically favoured term, ‘culture of clothing’. It was only in the late 1950s that the main socialist clothing enterprises changed their names to incorporate the word fashion. Changes in socialist fashion were strictly regulated. Each year, the State design institutions would publish

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detailed descriptions of the new fashion line for the next year in their information bulletins and fashion magazines, along with illustrations of the collections specially designed for this purpose. The new ‘fashion lines’ were to be coordinated beforehand with the other COMECON countries (Kazalarska, 2014, 3–12). The ideological underpinnings of ‘socialist fashion’ ran along several discursive lines: first and foremost, ‘socialist fashion’ was described as egalitarian – contrary to its historical role of marking class and gender, fashion under socialism was proclaimed to embody socialist egalitarian, democratic, and humanist principles. Another distinguishing feature of ‘socialist fashion’ is that it did not impose strictly defined fashion silhouettes and colour schemes. Its task was to educate and to offer guidelines and possibilities, so that every person was dressed as nicely and as properly as possible (ibid., 14–15). A further distinctive aspect was the emphasis on practical and comfortable clothes. The core of the socialist fashion dilemma consisted in the discrepancy between the presentation of what was practical and what was beautiful. The fashion functionaries played a particularly important role and had to achieve a balancing act between the party’s concept of the new woman and the preservation of ‘natural femininity’ (Ibroscheva, 2013, 54). The relation of ‘socialist fashion’ to its capitalist counterpart, however, was not strictly oppositional over time. From the late 1950s onwards, Western fashion was acceptable to a certain extent. ‘Fashion from Paris’ became commonplace in fashion magazines throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Moreover, at certain times, such as during Soviet thaw period of the 1950s, ideological compromises were not only permissible but even encouraged. However, the ambivalent definition of ‘socialist fashion’ placed the consumer in a precarious, double-bind situation: he or she was always on the borderline between ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ (bourgeois) consumption (Kazalarska, 2014, 22). The principle of egalitarianism applied not only to clothing and fashion, but also to the notion of beauty. Beauty was to be of a radically new type and to reflect a class-free society. The interest of women in displaying their physical appearance needed to be rationalised and reflected through the ideological lens of the respective communist party and its concept of gender equality and femininity. The party organizations were carefully guided by ‘scientific’ advice and expert opinions. Thus, the paternalistic party even controlled women’s bodies and looks. Most women’s magazines emphasised ‘physical beauty’ rather than ‘physical attraction’ in order to suppress imaginations of sexual desire (Ibroscheva, 2013, 49–53). Similarly, cosmetics were not to attract the attention of the opposite sex, but as a means of ‘bettering oneself’ which was the duty of every socialist man and woman (ibid., 17–19). The ability to buy and use Western cosmetics and perfumes was one of the most important markers of social status for both women and men. Not only were Western brands more expensive than socialist products, they were harder to acquire. Since cosmetics and perfumes from the West were only available in hard currency stores, most women had to make do with whatever the socialist planning committees decided to provide. Each country had several domestic brands produced by state enterprises, but there was never any guarantee that women would be able to get what they wanted. Although the lack of variety was troublesome, most women

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conceded that socialist cosmetics had good natural ingredients (Ghodsee, 2007, 29–31). At the centre of official concern with sexuality was the issue of female sexual behaviour. Beauty and desire were proclaimed indecent and harmful. As a result of this puritan-like ethic, the nude body disappeared from paintings, décolletages from TV, and love scenes from films. Female television announcers operated in a modest, impassive mode, suggesting a role as ‘mothers’ of the national family. The notion of eroticism in marriage was replaced by glorification of the woman-mother and a cult of maternity. Consequently, images of women were extremely didactic and performed ideological functions. Women were presented as having overcome the ‘para pleasures’ of leisure and devotion to aesthetics and the decadent trend of self-­ indulgence through attention to fashion and beauty; instead, they now focused on functional, production-driven activities. The visual space of socialist society was inhabited by ‘doers’, ‘fighters’, ‘functionaries’, ‘labourers’, and ‘activists’. The socialist parties manufactured and controlled a certain idea of femininity that had nothing to do with women’s self-expression and everything with the party line on gender equality (Băban, 2000, 239; Ibroscheva, 2013, 115; Imre, 2016, 193). In Bulgaria, for instance, socialist legislation made significant inroads on patriarchal attitudes to women in public life, but concepts of female sexuality remained very much contained within patriarchal ideology. After the early phase of repression of sexuality in the socialist media, during which proletarian women featured as desexualised workers and mothers in contrast to self-indulgent bourgeois housewives, femininity made a comeback in the course of the 1960s. However, women were never presented in terms of individually and actively experienced sexuality. For theorists and scientists into the 1980s, the raison d’être of a woman’s existence was motherhood. For the most part, the women’s and youth press assumed common experiences and goals of womanhood, promoting conservative codes of feminine beauty and domestic bliss. Boys and men were presented as romantic objects, displacing sexuality with codes of romantic courtship (Taylor, 2006, 164–66). Remaining in Bulgaria, in illustrated magazines of the early socialist period women were favourite icons of socialism as well as the most popular topic of interest. The ‘new woman’ and ‘new femininity’ were supposed to prove the obvious achievements of the socialist system. The new images documented that women no longer belonged solely to the hearth and home, and that the revolutionary political circumstances had not only changed the female personality but also women’s external appearance. Now, the socialist woman not only mastered male jobs but to a great extent had also adopted male attitudes. Her physique clearly differed from that of the ascetic saint, an ideal of the Eastern Church, and that of the fragile and melancholic aristocrat, which had been popular representations of femininity in the pre-­ socialist era. The illustrations showed women as good listeners and friends, loyal patriots, and respected and responsible citizens of socialist society. The visual compositions highlighted qualities such as compassion, composure, care, and selflessness (Gadjeva, 2015, 36–45). A research project that analysed hundreds of photographs published between 1956 and 1981 in the official daily of the Bulgarian Communist Party, Rabotnichesko

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Delo (Workers’ Cause), concluded that the ‘typical’ Bulgarian woman was neither light-heated nor flirtatious, let alone sexual. Of all feminine qualities, only motherly love in moderate quantities was tolerated. Meanwhile, women actively mastered men’s skills, acquired education, and took part in public life, all the while dressed in conservative suits, lacking any fashion sense, and appearing utterly asexual (Kaneva & Ibroscheva, 2013, 33–51). In the 1980s, the pages of women’s magazines began to change, including the manner in which women were visually represented. Images of women were toned down and appeared more feminine, though by no means suggestive. Growing familiarity with, and acceptance of, the female body as an object of visual pleasure signalled to the public at large a thaw with regard to sexual agency. Fashion magazines articulated first pleas for rethinking socialist femininity and the images it promulgated. Under the ever-watchful eye of the socialist party, new fashion journals were allowed a degree of creative freedom (Ibroscheva, 2013, 86–90). While socialist images of fashion, femininity, and beauty gradually started to approach Western ones, advertising – or what was called advertising in socialism – hardly changed.

Advertising In the Soviet Union where ‘advertising’ had decreased significantly from the late 1920s, an ‘advertising industry’ began to grow in the 1960s and 1970s. Inverted commas are used here because socialist advertising had a particular task: to educate the public, to develop demand, to advise consumers where they could quickly find what they wanted to buy, to help them make easy purchases, and to inform about prices. Advertising was not used to promote goods already in demand – this was seen as a waste of resources. Thus, a new product would be developed and sold to distributors without advertising. Retailers would find themselves with excess stock and would then carry out advertising at their own expense. The retailer and not the producer was therefore in control of advertising. Since the aim of Soviet-style advertising was to inform the buyer about each product, and not to make a profit, socialist theorists condemned Western advertising in comparison as manipulative as well as morally corrupt. They also criticised the use of sex appeal to sell products. Advertising as well as other competitive marketing techniques were considered wasteful and therefore to be avoided and treated with hostility. In addition, unrestrained market competition was seen to artificially stimulate consumption and to force people into buying things they did not need (ibid., 65–66). Since advertising in socialism was not used to promote goods, advertising techniques were not thoroughly elaborated. A typical shoe advertisement in Bulgaria, for example, would feature a hand-drawn illustration rather than a luxurious photo, along with verbose description of the materials the shoe was made of, its high versatility, as well as its durability. An advertisement promoting a vacation at a seaside resort would be comprised entirely of type, devoid of visual appeal and imaginative devices, and favouring a functional approach (ibid., 57–58).

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This short overview shows that the socialist regimes in the Balkans and South Caucasus, guided by Soviet ideologists, pursued a specific agenda regarding the visualisation of gender relations, femininity and masculinity. The aim was to create a ‘new man’ and worker, liberated from the restraints of tradition. Women were depicted as asexual friends and comrades in plain work clothes without any hint of style or fashion. Beauty ideals were based on ideology rather than on personal assets. The function of the media was to support these ideological ambitions and their intrinsic restrictions, formulated by a patriarchal state that knew better than the individual how to behave and how to decide (Kaneva & Ibroscheva, 2013, 351). When socialism broke down, the patronage of the media by the party and state bodies disappeared overnight. The new private newspapers were quick to move to the opposite extreme – publishing pictures of scantily clad and hyper-sexualised women on their pages on a daily basis.

The Market Economy and New Media Landscapes The breakdown of the socialist system did not encourage the immediate establishment of a liberal state of affairs everywhere. Wars and unrest in the South Caucasus and the former Yugoslavia poisoned the political, economic, social, and cultural climate. Independently of the question of how and how fast political and economic transition set in and progressed, it is crucial to note that gender roles and gender relations did not change overnight, as analysed in Chap. 3. However, the visual representation of femininities and masculinities in the rapidly emerging non-­ socialist media changed much faster, and comparatively abruptly. A field of tension emerged between the intensification of conservative gender ideology in realia and the visual representation of hyper-sexualised women in utopia. In the early phase of transition, visual utopia transformed more rapidly than the empirical realia of everyday practice. It appeared that utopia was faster to bury the socialist past. But what did visual media propose in the place of puritanical socialist morality? To give an advance answer is difficult, but one observation can be shared without hesitation. Whereas socialism enforced a homogenous puritan model of the family and gender relations, and of femininity and masculinity, post-socialism was characterised by a pluralism of competing capitalist and social forces and suggestions visual utopia concerned – ranging from sexism in commercial TV, film, and the tabloid press, to the morality of religious magazines and the conserving mission of state-sponsored textbooks.

The Tabloid Press, Commercial TV, and Women’s Magazines The tabloid press and commercial TV channels were faster to formulate new utopia than other media, which resulted in the dissemination of a classical Western archetype of masculinity reduced to one regional hegemonic type (the ‘Marlboro man’)

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and of a single regional hegemonic femininity (the beautiful housewife). Three nonhegemonic alternatives also emerged  – a constellation distinctly in opposition to realia with its regional hegemonic masculinity (violent and repressive) and with pluriform nonhegemonic masculinities, and a hegemonic femininity (the mother and chaste wife) without any nonhegemonic alternatives, as elaborated in Chap. 3. LGBTIQ people were ignored. However, time and a phase of experimentation, which I call the ‘wild 1990s’, were needed to develop mentioned emerging utopia. Characteristic of the wild 1990s were femininities and masculinities that had only temporary relevance; among them was a masculinity that became synonymous with power and money through its association with bullet-proof jeeps, dark sunglasses, and thick gold neck chains. This type of man provided money for the home and the education of his children; he was the master of the social and the domestic sphere. Femininity, on the other hand, became synonymous with perfect appearance and exhaustive beauty care; sometimes with silicone attributes to guarantee perfection, and at all costs with brand-name clothing. This woman would shine at receptions and parties, and would decorate, but not necessarily be married to, the proud man at her side. Once her beauty started to fade, however, a new woman would replace her as a decorative object. Of particular interest is the temporary emergence of a new type of femininity circulated by the media: the widow of the nouveau-riche man. This role was directly generated by social reality as the murders of mafia bosses, wealthy bankers, and moneyed criminals became a common phenomenon (Kirova & Slavova, 2012, 77). Romanian women’s magazines of the mid-1990s reflect the trends of the ‘wild’ decade. They can be grouped according to three categories: (1) less respectable publications dealing with sex and violence and catering for rather dubious tastes; (2) journals dwelling on glamour and celebrities, and meant for younger women (teenagers and women in their early twenties); and (3) serious journals printed on expensive glossy paper, conveying useful and appealing information to more mature women. A common feature of these magazines was that they almost exclusively disseminated images of Western women (Ghinea, 2013, 33–36). Two Romanian surveys allow closer scrutiny. In the mid-1990s, these journals  – especially their front pages – were full of shots of Western supermodels such as Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, and Claudia Schiffer. Foreign bodies seemed to have displaced local ones. When photographs of Romanian women were included, they compared badly because of the poor quality of the black-and-white images, taken by amateurs. The fetishised bodies of Western supermodels were meant to counteract previous socialist discourses, which were deeply resented by Romanian women for imposing what was perceived to be an asexual female identity (Nicolaescu, 1995, 32–34). The promotion of the bodies of supermodels was aided by myriad articles literally teaching women how to take ownership of their sexuality and use it to advance their goals. The majority of these articles were direct reprints of items published in the Western press on topics such as ‘how to flirt in the office’, ‘how to sell beauty’ and ‘how to use sex appeal to advance your career’. Articles appeared with teaser titles such as ‘The Art of Seduction: Sex as a Game,’ ‘Sex School and the Art of Flirting’, ‘The Erotic Zones of the Body’ and ‘18 Moments of Orgasm’ (Ibroscheva, 2013, 101–4).

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Other types of magazine with a focus on male readers, sex, and violence verged on pornography and abounded with images of fragmented bodies, typical of that genre. Pictures of women with bulging breasts were placed in the four corners of the page, thus framing stories about prostitutes or criminals. Quite frequently, bare breasts were detached from the rest of the body and inserted within a crossword puzzle. The idea of femininity thus underwent radical devaluation and stark instrumentalisation. Women were reduced to anatomy, to parts of the female body that provide sexual pleasure. Those magazines targeting young women generally offered their readership images of oversexed women and of an excessive femininity. Cinema stars and top models were often shown wearing heavy make-up and flaunting their sexuality in an aggressive way. Journals thus responded to a need for overemphasised sexual difference  – a need experienced in Romanian society as the consequence of a feeling of lack. Cosmetics, excessive make-up, and sexy clothing came to signify a desirable femininity that had long been unattainable or simply prohibited. Visual and textual representations encouraged female readers to revise their traditional views on sex, to change their patterns of behaviour, and to reshape their personalities as sexually provocative if not aggressive. Headlines urged the reader to be the sexiest girl on the beach, to be seductive in company, at a party, or at the disco. Images of big-breasted and heavily made up models illustrated the various recipes for how to be sexy, seductive, and irresistible. The definition of femininity as an object of the male gaze was thus reinforced (Ghinea, 2013, 33–36). Magazines and journals like those analysed above differ from dailies insofar as the latter emphasise the visual representation of men, especially in their political sections. An ambitious research project conducted in the early 2000s analysed the visual representation of men and women in nine newspapers, including tabloids, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia.2 The collection of dailies comprised around 6000 photographs and documents that other countries were similarly infected by the ‘wild 1990s’ virus. The newspapers used photography to visually support articles by offering additional information to attract the attention of the reader. Nevertheless, in doing so they represented the photographed subjects in particular ways. When it came to gender roles and relations, the subject in the foreground of the image was of crucial importance – whether a naked body, a person in an office behind a desk, or someone dancing in a nightclub (Isanović, 2006, 52–75). The most important results of the analysis were: (1) 55% of the photographs were of men and 16% of women. On the front pages, the distribution was 59% and 12%. (2) Photographs of women were frequently published as mere decoration of the text. A more important feature was the selection and presentation of photographs of nude women without any accompanying article. These images were meant to ensure high circulation. (3) The misuse of illustrative material was frequent. Issues related to trafficking, forced migration, and prostitution were illustrated with photographs taken in night clubs or of striptease dancers. (4) Men and women were  The daily newspapers from Bosnia and Herzegovina were Dnevni avaz, Oslobodjenje, and Glas Srpske; from Croatia Jutarnji list, Večernji list, and Slobodna Dalmacija; and from Serbia Politika, Večernje novosti, and Blic.

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presented differently in terms of the selected images, with a much stronger emphasis on the bodily and sexual characteristics of women than those of men (ibid.). In the ‘wild 1990s’, a porno-chic culture that highlighted the nude female body was established in reaction to the formerly imposed socialist dictate of purity and sexual control. In the transition years, marked by hardly any institutionalised media control, pornified representations sometimes exceeded the standards of what was considered sexism in Western countries by far. The visual exploitation of the female body seemed to drastically contradict the realia of retraditionalisation. In this atmosphere of ‘anything goes’, the divide between utopia and realia grew wider. Genres such as school textbooks and religious magazines, part of those scarce areas not exposed to the dynamics of ‘sex sells’, were associated with reaffirmed realia. Film productions were somewhere in between.

Cinema and Telefilms It is more of a challenge to discuss cinema and telefilms than to analyse tabloids because behind the production of a single film there are so many interests (production companies), persons (screenwriters, directors, camera operators), and funding organisations (international and national, private and public) that impact on content. In addition, distribution companies, cinema owners, and national and international audiences have a stake in the production of films. National film productions hardly exist any longer. In many cases, the nationality of the director or the leading actors, the biggest film subsidy, the geographic location of the plot, or a combination of these factors decides about the national or emotional belonging of a film. As stated earlier, the American film industry is the most significant source of the construction of global masculinities. Tens of millions of people flock to movie theatres worldwide or consume films in other ways. As mentioned in the previous chapter, crossovers into mainstream Hollywood from traditionally marginalised groups increased from the 1990s. The number of women directors has clearly risen, and multiple kinds of male same-sex identity and, to a lesser extent, lesbian identities have become visible on screen. Yet these various developments have not necessarily translated into economic equality, nor have they necessarily served to enhance the status of non-white, non-patriarchal, or non-straight cultural production (Davies & Smith, 2013). In addition to growing film production by women directors and the visibility of same-sex identities, and independently of the problematic translation of visual utopia into reality, Hollywood cinema created fatherhood as a defining component of ideal masculinity in the early twenty-first century. Paternalised protagonists have become an increasingly and often overwhelmingly omnipresent feature of popular film. Hannah Hamad has argued that this corresponds with a broader discursive turn towards fatherhood as ideal masculinity in postfeminist culture (Hamad, 2013, 99–101, 104).

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As a result of the multi-channel transition and the new form of competition between the emerging cable channels, American television, too, had to find a new male audience through providing more complex masculinities than before (Lotz, 2014, 35). More audaciously gay male characters began to appear from 2003. The total number of queer characters on television started to grow, and in 2005 the first American gay cable network, LOGO, was launched. However, the visibility of gays and lesbians in the media has not always translated into social tolerance or recognition, particularly because the fictional media narratives have tended to emphasise the interpersonal issues of homosexuality and avoid the political ones (Avila-­ Saavedra, 2009, 5–6, 10, 18). As will be seen later, international co-production with Balkan countries did not remain completely untouched by this turn in Hollywood’s production strategy in the early twenty-first century. Of course, it should be underlined that the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the collapse of Yugoslavia in the first half of the 1990s overshadowed film production in and about the West Balkans for the rest of the decade and the beginning of the 2000s. In this period, a form of ‘Balkan masculinity’ was foregrounded that came close to uncivilised latent brutality and savagery on the fringes of Europe (Harper, 2017, 122). Many Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian dramas filmed in the late 1990s and early 2000s have centred on the question of masculine identity and its relationship to violence. West Balkan cinema has focused so much on male criminality that it deserves the epithet ‘macho cinema’ (Dumančić & Krolo, 2017, 167, 173). In international film, rape and other forms of gender violence have mainly been used as a metaphor for general deprivation and social disturbance. Rape is treated by filmmakers less within the discourse on gender than within the discourse on despair, social turmoil, and brutal violence that reigns all around (Iordanova, 2001, 202–3). Thus in the 1990s, the decade of the Yugoslav wars and violent masculinities, there was no place for a feminist agenda. In 1997, the prominent Balkan film expert, Dina Iordanova, rightly established that in recent Balkan filmmaking, interest in women’s problems did not serve any feminist cause. Directors rather tended to use the female image as a medium to address other issues, such as oppression in interpersonal relations, social injustice, and economic hardship. Since women’s characters were often conceptualised as marginal, the introduction of female protagonists allowed filmmakers to exploit the limitations that mark women’s fates (Iordanova, 1996–1997, 25–26). While such narratives tended to reinforce conventional notions of female victimhood and passivity in the 1990s and early 2000s, some of these films of the second half of the 2000s display a distinctly feminist sensibility. In fact, women directors did rather better than their male counterparts at creating narratives that contest both nationalist and masculinist violence. They have achieved the difficult feat of creating victim-centred narratives without descending into nationalist propaganda. Jasmila Žbanić (Grbavica 2006), Juanita Wilson (As If I Am Not There 2010), and Angelina Jolie (In the Land of Blood and Honey 2011) have made films that come as close as any productions of the last few decades to challenging and even transcending patriarchal and nationalist perspectives on the war by presenting

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characters orientated towards an ethic of care (Harper, 2017, 149). These films show the brutality of the conflict through the eyes of Bosnian-Herzegovinian women and have focused on the subjective experience of rape, depicting prolonged and repeated acts of sexual violence rather than narrating rape briefly and retrospectively (ibid., 97–98). Grbavica can even be considered a feminist film project; not only does it depict everyday life for marginalised women in a post-war society, but from the director/screenwriter, cinematographer, and producer to the leading-role actors, all the primary participants behind Grbavica were women (Murtic, 2015, 109–10). After the early 2000s there was an obvious shift away from the appreciation of violence not only in society but, unsurprisingly, in cinema too. In the post-Yugoslav countries, a whole new group of films and filmmakers appeared who had much in common. Whether Bosnian, Croatian, or Serbian, their films focus on characters trying to cope with post-war reality. The protagonists must overcome traumas and obstacles inherited from the past (usually war) and take an active approach to the problems they face in order to sort out a better future for themselves. Therefore, these films may be called ‘films of normalisation’ (Pavičić, 2010, 47). Among these films were the first to spotlight gay narratives. In fact, these films addressed taboo topics years before they were tackled by politics. Between 2002 and 2005, four of the Yugoslav successor states produced major feature films with lesbian or gay protagonists. One of the reasons why so-called gay films were successful in the decade after interethnic conflict was that they were all shot by straight directors and screenwriters. However, the films were more popular with local liberal audiences than with local queer communities. This phenomenon could be interpreted as a sign of increasing tolerance of homosexuality, or as an attempt to conform to Western European cultural norms; some of the films were in fact co-produced by Western European film companies. The films were certainly marketed by exploiting their shock value. Yet there may be reasons why same-sex relations in film functioned particularly well as a lightning rod for tolerance in the aftermath of the wars that resulted in the break-up of Yugoslavia. One of these films shows just how explosive male same-sex attraction could be in the Balkan context. Ahmed Imamović’s Go West, which portrays a gay male couple of mixed ethnicity during the war in Bosnia, was not only the first gay film from Bosnia but also the most controversial Bosnian film of all time, even in neighbouring countries. Lesbian sexuality does not provoke the same kind of anxiety in the region, in part because it is not seen as a threat to constructions of masculinity (Moss, 2012, 352–56). A film which tackled the issues of both feminine desire and  women’s rights, Di si duboko (Take a Deep Breath), was made in 2004 by director Dragan Marinković. It was the first Serbian film to deal with same-sex love between two women (Kronja, 2008, 69). These first feminist, gay and lesbian films, however, have had little impact on the depiction of gender relations in mainstream film production. Serbian film, for example, has shown a tendency towards retraditionalisation and the re-establishment of patriarchal values in terms of male/female gender roles and women’s rights after a series of films dealing with society’s fall into poverty and isolation, and the spread of crime, reflected in weak and mentally deteriorated male protagonists. Urban

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youth dramas made by younger directors have to some extent shown reserve in treating intimate topics and particularly the world of female characters. Cinematic works have dealt with the topics of love, eroticism, and desire in largely conventional and conservative ways, centring the story on male protagonists and showing women whose integrity is suppressed by social norms. Their beauty makes them objects of desire, while their social position in a man’s world is a cause of suffering and forces them to endure patriarchal restrictions until they accept optional happiness (ibid., 67–80). This section on the representation of gender in film has so far concentrated on the countries of the former Yugoslavia because the 1990s wars not only mobilised patriarchal behaviour and traditional masculinities on the battlefield and at home, but in cinematic representation too. Interestingly, this tendency towards ‘macho cinema’, spanning the 1990s to the early 2000s, was not limited to the former Yugoslav states but was also observed in countries not exposed to war, such as Turkey (aside from the Kurdish conflict). In the mid-1990s, a new epoch began in Turkish cinema as the industry overcame its production crisis, particularly thanks to the success of ‘macho cinema’. Even though Turkish cinema had always been male-dominated, it had never before been so intense in terms of the representation of characters and stories. The new cinema differed from the other decades in Turkish film history through its mostly male-­ centred narratives and male perspective, telling stories of – or through – male protagonists and exploring their lives, problems, conflicts, feelings, anxieties, and fantasies. In this atmosphere, women were cast either as figures who provoke or seduce men into committing crimes, violence, and irrational acts, or they were completely excluded from the narrative (Güçlü, 2010, 72–75). Along with this type of film, a new female representational form emerged: the silent, inaudible female. From 1993 on, especially between 1996 and 2004, film analysts encountered silent female characters who were not specific to a single genre. In terms of theme, there was a tendency for the silent female to be associated with sexuality, (self-)destruction, otherness, (gender-based) violence, and/or a traumatic past. These associations were mostly expressed through her impassive and silent body. Ultimately, the silent female character served as a vehicle for the expression, revelation, and also elimination of masculine fears, anxieties, and frustrations (ibid.). A recent study emphasises that the representation of masculinity on television in Turkey resembles cinema characterisations. In both, two dominant stereotypes have appeared. The first is the romantic, handsome, rich, and in every sense powerful, man. The latter is funny, simple, rude, and frustrated. According to common perception, women in Turkish TV series and films are minor characters. Their main role in the narrative is to accompany the male character and to be loved and protected by him. Gender roles are kept strictly distinct. In all these constructions, men are defined by their external appearance, of which wealth is a prominent element. These productions create an expectation of how men in the real world should be, as well as of woman’s ideal man (Gürkan & Serttaş, 2017, 402–4).

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In parallel with the post-Yugoslav ‘films of normalisation’ as an antithesis to the mainstream, an antithesis has also emerged in Turkish cinema. As already indicated, this can be seen in the sharp increase in women directors as well as in films with a feminist agenda since 2005, and the establishment of women’s film festivals.

Textbooks In contrast to women’s magazines, which encourage young women to be sexually provocative and dominant, school textbooks for primary and secondary education portray women in traditional passive and sacrificial roles. This is one of the results of a notable investigation of Armenian textbooks published in 2016, which revealed that textbooks in Armenia were predominantly written by men, and only a few by teams composed of men and women. Textbooks for history and literature at secondary school level were edited and written entirely by men, without the contribution of a single woman (Silova, 2016). Thus it is no surprise that these textbooks presented women in stereotypical ways, with female figures often appearing as passive, submissive, and dependent on men. In most of the textbooks, women and girls were principally framed by their family status, in particular as mother, wife, daughter, and grandmother. The texts highlight their modesty, beauty, humility, propriety, and readiness to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their husbands and homeland. Women in history were unnamed victims who needed protection as well as passive creatures who were kidnapped, taken hostage, or married off for diplomatic reasons. Women were also less frequently identified in their professional capacities compared to men, and the range of female professions and occupations was generally limited to teachers and nurses. Men were presented as decision-makers, shapers of history, political and religious figures, advisors, generals, heroes, and leading cultural figures (ibid.). Armenian textbooks are by far not unique in their neglect of women’s roles in history. The analysis of textbooks in some of the Balkan countries reveal similar patterns, though details may differ. A research project that investigated 106 Romanian textbooks in the early 2000s concluded that, contrary to Armenia, the biased selection of images could not be ascribed to an absence of female authors because women wrote about half of the primary school textbooks (52%) and represented 43% of the authors of high school texts. Approximately two thirds of the more than 4000 images of people in the selected textbooks were male. In terms of the depiction of trades and occupations, the pattern was even more skewed. In textbooks for the third to twelfth grades, only 2.2% of the pictures of women showed them in a work situation, and only 16 out of 1306 images depicting activities in recognisable trades were of women; at the same time, only 1% of the images placed men in domestic situations (Blumberg, 2007, 10). A textbook analysis project undertaken in Greece and published in 2016 investigated the total illustrations found in sixth-grade primary school language textbooks in use since 2006. Semiotic and content analysis showed that these textbooks did

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not apply the principles of gender equality. Women played an insignificant role, while the numerical superiority of men was overwhelming. The representation of girls in relation to boys was comparatively better, underlining the impression that stereotypes were more strictly applied to adults. Regarding the occupations and job roles of the characters illustrated in these textbooks, a greater number was associated with men. Thus, fewer jobs were associated with women, at a ratio of 1:3, while men were shown in a wider range of occupations. Women appeared in occupations related exclusively to care, administrative assistance, and the arts. In the public sphere, men were presented in prestigious positions and as having occupations that granted them power and authority, while women, when presented outside the home, had access to a limited set of occupations involving the provision of services, child education, the arts, and beauty care. The broadening of the variety of activities and occupations conducted by women when compared with older textbooks cannot be evaluated as a positive aspect of the newer literature since the stereotypes of women’s roles remained the same. The author concluded that the images in these books reflect a sexist mentality that presents men as superior and women as inferior (Karintzaidis, 2016, 114–19). The final example of national textbook studies presented here analysed Albanian textbooks for grades one to four of primary school, except mathematics textbooks. The research, conducted in the early 2000s, noted that illustrations focused mainly on males. Men took up more page space and their social dominance was expressed by carrying out important functions in their roles as doctors, entrepreneurs, and leaders, and were characterised as brave, hardworking, and wise. Women and girls mainly kept in the background. Even where girls figured as leaders, they were vaguely and cheerlessly presented. They appeared to serve the boys, their brothers, and friends, and were always neat and pretty, doing well at schoolwork, and not commanding action. Only civic and social education textbooks deviated from this general trend. Here, the illustrations of men and women were evenly balanced; likewise, the character qualities and gender roles of the depicted were evenly distributed (Dhamo, 2005, 31–33). This short overview indicates that textbooks socialise young people, boys and girls, in rather traditional ways. Visual gender representation in education is reproducing patriarchal patterns by emphasising men in leading professional, political, and public positions in history and the present, while women are primarily attached to the household and to caregiving and minor public roles.

Religious Magazines The generally socially conservative and gender-biased textbooks used in schools in Eurasia Minor are supplemented and strengthened by visual representations in religious magazines. Since the number of people who declare themselves as religious and take part in religious worship increased in the first one to two decades after the collapse of socialism, the images of masculinities and femininities in the magazines

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of religious communities are relevant and deserve investigation. However, the state of research in this area is rather disappointing due of the lack of studies. Despite intensive inquiry, I was able to discover only one meaningful study, in this case focused on the image of women. Zilka Spahić-Šiljak (2008) looked at the publications of religious communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2006. The project investigated the models of womanhood promoted by the three major religions and communicated to the male and female members of the respective faith. The author’s main hypothesis is that these images influence value systems and reflect the actual status of woman in society. Therefore, it is extremely important to examine the messages disseminated by the official organs of religious communities3 (ibid., 148–49). Interestingly, the Orthodox publication Pravoslavlje did not portray family relations or relations between men and women; meanwhile, the prevailing motifs in the Muslim magazine Preporod and the Catholic Katolički tjednik were of mother and daughter, followed by depictions of the roles of father, wife, husband, and son. The mother was the symbol of the hearth and the homeland. In Katolički tjednik, all texts promoted the model of the pious woman, whether in connection with the Mother of God, a saint, or with other pious women in a present-day context. Above all, she should be a good mother, whose most sacred task is to bring up her family and to fulfil the holy duty allotted to her. The quantitatively most important group of images referred to occupations and the religious roles of women and men. In Katolički tjednik, nuns and religious sisters appeared in half of the images, followed by pictures of saints. Pictures of men were more frequent (the male to female relation was 5:1). A quarter of these images depicted either a cardinal or bishop, followed by the pope, priests, and scholars. In Preporod, the relation of males to females was 10:1. The majority of the depicted women were artists, followed by journalists and religion teachers. The general impression was of few women, except in the background of events. Men occupied the majority of the illustrations and dominated in roles reflecting power and authority. Women were entirely marginalised in the visual messages and occupied secondary roles related to questions of education, culture, and conversion to Islam. Pravoslavlje overall had a smaller number of pictures and particularly few images of women, most of them depicting the Mother of God. In the case of men, pictures of religious leaders of various ranks predominated. Women were completely relegated to the background, appearing only incidentally in the framework of other, more important, topics. Their role was reduced to such an extent that at first glance there appeared to be no women in the magazine at all (Spahić-Šiljak, 2008, 150–63). This survey indicates that depictions of women in the religious magazines of Bosnia and Herzegovina are subdued, or that women are altogether invisible. As to be expected, the religious  – male  – elite is in the foreground. Like the textbook images, these depictions reflect actual power relations and the servile role of women in society. The state and the churches, as the country’s most important public

3  The studied official publications were: Katolički tjednik (Catholic Church), Preporod (Islamic community), and Pravoslavlje (Orthodox Church).

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institutions, obviously see no necessity to adjust femininities and masculinities to the conditions of a modern society in their visualisation policies. Of course, the churches cannot be expected to lead the way in this regard, but state institutions should do more than to mirror traditions that need to be overcome. As an interim result, this rough overview of the emerging media landscape after socialism reflects the situation in the ‘wild 1990s’, characterised by retraditionalisation in various forms. The most conspicuous form in the tabloid press, women’s magazines, and on private TV was porno-chic culture, which over-­sexualised and commodified women’s bodies. Domestic women’s magazines showed a strong tendency to copy, for instance, images of glamorous fashion models or the principle of ‘sex sells’ from Western media, while such content was an intrinsic element of national editions of international women’s magazines. Textbooks and religious magazines, also part of the retraditionalisation configuration, constituted moral counterforces to the hyper-sexualisation of women. In the film industry, ‘macho cinema’ emphasised the male (war) hero and the ‘silent woman’. The general picture that emerges is that gender relations were conceptualised in traditional ways, and femininities and masculinities expressed through stereotypes. However, from around 2005 first signs appeared indicating a trend towards diminished gender stereotypes, whether in the form of less hyper-sexualisation of women’s bodies in the tabloid press, in the form of the ‘films of normalisation’ (including films about same-sex love) that started to substitute the ‘macho cinema’, through the appearance of numerous film directors in Turkey with a feminist agenda, or in the shape of changes in chalga and turbo-folk culture as mentioned in Chap. 4. Of course, first signs do not (yet) represent the mainstream, but they are worth noting because they strongly support my thesis of visual utopia as the avant-garde dimension of a turn in the understanding of gender relations in the region.

Advertising Femininities and Masculinities The beginning of the twenty-first century brought some significant changes to the advertising industry towards a noticeable shift in sex role portrayals with women in central and independent roles and with greater degrees of control over their lives (Ibroscheva, 2007, 411). In the second half of the twentieth century until approximately the 1990s, women were presented in Western media as thrilled homemakers and mothers serving their family’s needs, and whose dreams were fulfilled by a new bleaching product or any other detergent. According to media analysts, advertisements are no longer as sexist as they used to be, but they still use some traditionally established stereotypes (Kešetović, 2013, 24–26). However, commercial interests not only keep traditional stereotypes alive, but also exploit the postfeminist emphases on bodily self-expression, the desirability of women’s freedom, and the ability to choose a highly sexualised lifestyle discussed in the introduction. Originally occupied by educated and upwardly mobile women, feminism as postfeminism has

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become easily mainstreamed, popularised, and exposed to commercial interests and advertising since having lost its oppositional force (Press, 2013, 117–8). The question is whether and how these trends have been adapted to post-socialist contexts. Can we identify deviations from the ‘wild’ mainstream of the 1990s and early 2000s in the crucial sector of advertising, too? Advertising at that time was characterised by aggressive masculinisation and the commercial eroticisation of the female body which adopted a new, highly sexual identity. Women became consumers, but more importantly, the women featured in advertisements started to be consumed and to widely and readily offer their sexualised bodies for consumption. The trend was to ‘sex up’ the look of women in advertising (Ibroscheva, 2012, 108–9). The danger here lies in the political economy underlying the import of Western images of the perfect sexed-up body, which in turn created a new stereotype of the Eastern European woman – sexy, hungry for attention, frail, waiting to be rescued (or discovered) by a rich, powerful man – thus producing new masked politics of domination and subordination (ibid., 112–7). Research has shown that sexually oriented advertising appeals were widespread, commonplace, and on the increase. Women were portrayed in more sexually explicit ways than men. In Eastern Europe, this became a particularly visible trend, with beauty hailed as the utmost ‘feminine’ gender characteristic and sexuality embraced as a common technique in advertising and by the local entertainment industry. In the area of gender portrayals, researchers have demonstrated that women were depicted as dependent and decorative, as unemployed homemakers and caregivers, and as less knowledgeable than men and confined to the home (Ibroscheva, 2007, 411). This general picture can be refined by a study conducted in 2012 that investigated types of beauty ideals in outdoor advertisements in Bulgaria, Hong Kong, Japan, Poland, South Korea, and Turkey. One of the results showed that advertisements in Hong Kong used the largest number of women’s images and Turkey the smallest. Another result indicated that Japan was the only country where feminine beauty was most often portrayed through popular image types. Cute/girl-next-door images accounted for the highest percentages in Turkish and South Korean advertisements, while sensual/sex kitten renderings were most popular in Bulgaria and Poland. There were statistically significant differences related to face/body depictions. Face-only advertisements prevailed in Japan and South Korea, while Polish and Bulgarian advertisements showed high percentages of full-body shots and low rates of face-only renderings. Turkey had no face-only image. In early advertisements of the 1980s promoting veiled women, women’s faces were absent, i.e. blocked out, thus suppressing the model’s identity. The avoidance of portrait images is backed by the survey data, as 80% of Turkey’s commercial messages featured more of the female body than a woman’s face (Morris, 2014, 250–57). This international comparison is particularly interesting as it reveals striking differences between the neighbouring countries of Bulgaria and Turkey, underlining the differences between porno-chic and veiling-chic cultures. Bulgarian advertising displayed a high proportion of women’s images, a high percentage of full-body shots, and low rates of face-only depictions. Turkish advertisements, in contrast, showed a low proportion of women’s images, and among them a noticeably high

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number of cute/girl-next-door portraits. The fact that early Turkish advertisements promoting veiled women faces suppressed the model’s identity, and almost all later commercial messages featured more than a woman’s face but only part of her body, is related to Islam’s aversion against body representation, i.e. the portrayal of concrete individuals, as discussed in Chap. 4. Aversion against body representation is a clear feature of veiling-chic culture, and the display of the entire female body is typical of porno-chic culture. The cited 2012 survey reflects trends in Bulgarian and Turkish mainstream advertising. The history of advertising in Bulgaria reveals a ‘wild’ phase that stretched from the 1990s well into the 2000s. Developing under conditions of general institutional instability and lack of regulation, advertising became not only a vehicle of commercial success but also a forum where new ideas of what it meant to be a ‘modern’ woman and what it meant to be a successful businessperson were negotiated. This ‘educative’ aspect of advertising was particularly gendered and allured consumers with images of beauty and luxury, and new social norms, often clashing with established cultural traditions. Western companies saw immense potential for profit in advertising and were among the first to test the ground. Since investment in print and outdoor advertisements at the onset of transition was risky, advertising did not shy away from featuring sexualised females – selling anything and everything with a sexy twist. The ‘sexing-up’ of women was (1) a reaction to the stifling sexual politics of socialist ideology and (2) a response to the fact that female images turned out to provide the most profitable commodity in the conditions of unbridled capitalism. Because many eager young women wanted to see their faces on public display, the sexy model was the simplest, cheapest, and most immediate solution (Ibroscheva, 2012, 108–9, 112–17). In the course of time, Bulgarian companies in the advertising industry professionalised and started to take over from Western firms. With this development, the woman’s body in advertising was ‘sexed up’ even more. The hyper-sexualisation of Bulgarian women became common in all forms of promotion. Advertisers discovered that products became desirable not only because they were associated with the female body but also because of the way in which this association was presented. In other words, the beautiful and often nude body of a woman turned out to be an important yet insufficient condition to sell the product. Combining the sex appeal of the chalga stars (see Chap. 4) – fronting unnaturally big and artificially enhanced breasts and a face modelled after Barbie – with specific products, especially brands of liquor, quickly became a guaranteed success formula for the advertising business. The popular advertising campaigns for alcoholic beverage producer Peshtera, which were the hits of the summer season in 2006, 2007, and 2008, featured two of Bulgaria’s budding pop-folk stars, Emilia and Galena, dressed in skimpy bathing suits designed to make their breasts and private areas look like watermelons (Ibroscheva, 2013, 125–27). A research project investigating visual gender representations in 2009 concluded that the Bulgarian advertising terrain was still dominated by stereotypical gender roles and images, which served to keep reproducing the social inequalities between men and women. The dominant type of masculinity, equipped with attributes such

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as determination, physical strength, and resilience, was presented in opposition to a traditional understanding of femininity as restricted to the domain of family responsibility and sexual attractiveness. An illustrative example was the summer 2009 advertising campaign for the beer brand Kamenitsa, when the whole of Bulgaria was literally and metaphorically flooded with TV clips and billboards with the slogan ‘Let’s save the man’. Men were shown asserting their masculinity by simply rejecting the ‘boring’ demands of their wives such as not to open beer bottles with a fork, not to talk on the phone with their mothers, to take care of their personal belongings, and so on. The real man was the one who could say ‘no’ to his wife despite the fact that her family demands were fair (Kirova & Slavova, 2012, 72–73). Another advertising campaign in Bulgaria, for Flirt vodka, established the company’s leading position as an alcohol brand known for its sexually provocative advertising. Flirt’s pioneering campaign was launched in 2004 with sexually suggestive print advertisements. The campaign consisted of a series of photographs of the bare back torsos of female and male models, displaying prominent tattoos of wild animals engaged in hunting pursuit. The models’ bodies, only partially revealed, were photographed locked in a sexually suggestive embrace, with deliberate camera angles, mostly close-ups. Once Flirt vodka broke into the market, it started to engage in a series of much more aggressive campaigns in an attempt to build a distinct brand, simultaneously competing with a ballooning number of vodka brands and other alcohol varieties, many of which already used hyper-­ sexualised portrayals and sexually risqué behaviour to advertise their product (Ibroscheva, 2013, 120–23). Advertisements for cheap alcohol were the loudest and most tasteless ones. As a rule, they portrayed pop-folk music stars aggressively dishing out their flesh in an embodiment of their chosen style of femininity. These few spectacular examples, however, should not give the impression that they represented the mainstream. Other sexist types of advertisement usually presented typically ‘masculine’ professions, activities, or attributes through the mediation of the female body, which supposedly is able to sell anything. There were very few uncommon or gender-transgressive advertisements (Kirova & Slavova, 2012, 72–73). Following this trans-media overview of advertising, I will concentrate first on TV commercials and then on the print media. A research paper published in 2010 compared the results of 30 studies worldwide published between 2000 and 2008 and discovered that there were universal patterns in how advertisers would choose to advertise products and, further, that many products were clearly sex-related in the sense that they were more frequently bought by males or females (Furnham & Paltzer, 2010, 217, 222–23). Interestingly, there was some evidence of a decrease in gender-role stereotyping in television advertising over time, but only in expressly ‘masculine’ countries (Furnham & Paltzer, 2011, 1). As elaborated in detail in Chap. 4, TV commercials are estimated to be the most effective form of advertising in Eurasia Minor because almost the entire population regularly watches television. Again, Bulgaria is the best studied country in the region also regarding TV advertisements. Improvements in the quality of advertising in the country were observed as a consequence of the introduction of the Law on Consumer Protection and Trade Rules in 1999. Since then, regulators have

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systematically clamped down on misleading advertising and have also condemned some cases of offensive advertising. Yet controversial advertisements have continued to appear in the media, particularly among companies promoting alcoholic beverages (Millan & Elliott, 2004) as described above. The general profile of Bulgarian TV advertisements in the early 2000s showed a predominance of women as central figures who for the most part appeared visually but did not have a speaking role. Women had a more suggestive physical appearance than men and were portrayed in more sexually explicit situations. Sex-role stereotypes and sexualised depictions of women dominated. Women were mainly consumers rather than authorities, and rarely featured as voice-over speakers compared to men. Frequently, women were depicted as dependent housekeepers and advertised domestic products, whereas men advertised sports and cars. This general profile was confirmed by a study that investigated 127 advertisements on Bulgarian TV in 2004. In three quarters of the commercials, young females functioned as central characters, dressed half demurely and half sexually suggestively (Ibroscheva, 2007, 410–16). A comparable study on the representation of women in television advertising some 10  years later investigated gender aspects of advertising on the Bulgarian channel bTV. Sex-role stereotypical images of women were still broadcast; most of the women were presented in dependent roles and were young and beautiful, while men were older. Women dominated in advertisements for domestic products; men advertised products used outside the home (Kotseva, 2014, 1, 65–72). In the print media, an interesting trend in the early post-socialist era was the abundance of advertisements that clearly targeted women’s interests and consumer needs. This marketing strategy exemplified the ‘domestication’ of advertising, as the majority of print advertisements promoted household products such as sewing machines, refrigerators, and cleaning agents. Not only were most goods advertised to women (as consumers) or advertised via women (as models), but in both cases the implicit goal was to cultivate a new aesthetic for post-socialist femininity. The models were attractive, often provocatively looking over their shoulders and projected a new sense of appearance by wearing Italian tights, high-heeled shoes, immaculate make-up, and lots of flashy jewellery. In this way, the new magazine culture also instituted a new ideal of femininity – the ‘feminine’ woman, who was now the most common and widespread image of woman in Bulgarian society at large. The paradoxical outcome of this new phenomenon of creating desire through advertising was the continuation of the patriarchal tradition of the woman as a self-negating creature. Even if the product had nothing to do with the physical appearance of women, the advertisement nonetheless evoked an association with the woman promoting it  – and specifically with her body  – as a symbolic ‘stamp’ of quality (Ibroscheva, 2013, 101–4). As already discussed, this ‘wild phase’ of new and sexualised femininities in advertising in the 1990s seemed to fade out in the late 2000s, or was increasingly displaced by more ‘politically correct’ campaigns, at least in EU member countries like Romania. A survey of Romanian magazine advertisements published in 2010 concluded that traditional gender roles were still present, but significant changes in

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the portrayal of women were visible. Women were increasingly portrayed as strong, independent, and active – but still as less strong, independent, and active than men. In other advertisements, women seemed to be in control of their bodies, sexuality, and social status, even sometimes dominating men. The authors suggested that this might be the image of the new woman – a woman assuming a new status and confident that nudity can be perceived as natural and beautiful, rather than as an erotic appeal (Berariu et al., 2010, 661–63). A further study of gender stereotypes in advertisements in a comparable EU country, the Republic of Cyprus, was conducted between 2011 and 2012 based on nine consumer magazines (three women’s magazines, three men’s magazines, and three general interest magazines). The results of the survey were not as optimistic as the Romanian ones and concluded that while women were no longer primarily cast in traditional roles reflecting gender clichés like ‘dependency’ and ‘housewife’, the overwhelming proportion of female models served decorative or alluring purposes. The study, moreover, confirmed previous research which established some progress in the portrayal of women in print advertisements; however, despite slight changes in the type of stereotyping, the extent of the use of stereotypes had hardly diminished (Tsichla & Zotos, 2013; Tsichla & Zotos, 2016, 991–1000). If we combine the three surveys – Bulgarian, Romanian, and Cypriot – the result reveals additional indications of a fading out of the ‘wild phase’ of hyper-sexualised femininities in advertising, although it must be underlined that the Republic of Cyprus was never a socialist country. Furthermore, national adaptions of advertisements in the US-based international women’s magazine Cosmopolitan, discussed in Chap. 4, should be taken into consideration because of the publication’s high quality and its target group: sexually independent women of a higher social milieu  – a social segment that has remained widely neglected by research. An analysis of a 2012 Romanian edition of Cosmopolitan showed that almost half of the magazine’s content was dedicated to advertisements, one way or another. Most of the advertising images showed young and beautiful female models. The three attributes of a woman defined for the target women readers of the magazine were: ravishing, strong, and feminine. The ravishing woman was very beautiful, young, seductive, lightly and provocatively dressed, while appearing strong at the same time. According to the author, the featured images of the beautiful but strong woman indicated that the magazine was taking a stand against standardised feminine beauty (Suciu, 2012, 527–29). Another study compared 656 advertisements in the American edition of Cosmopolitan with 595 advertisements in the Croatian and Serbian Cosmopolitan between 2001 and 2010. Advertisements in the Croatian and Serbian issues were copied from the parallel American issues, albeit with some adjustments to accommodate the Balkan market. Some results of the comparison are especially relevant here: (1) advertisements in the Balkan issues tended to be more conservative than those in the American issues in terms of the display of same-sex relations. In the Balkan edition, men and women were represented as heterosexual couples, leaving no place for doubt or ambiguity (Kešetović, 2013, 93–97). (2) Traditional gender stereotypes were omnipresent in the Balkan issues. Patriarchal attitudes were

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enforced by the fact that images of nude male bodies were under-represented in comparison to women’s naked bodies, but also in comparison to men’s naked bodies seen in the American corpus of advertisements (ibid., 57–58). (3) Sexuality, predominantly women’s sexuality, was widely emphasised. The image of full red lips, representing the vulva, was used frequently. Like in advertisements in Western media, the position of an advertised lipstick in relation to the model’s lips represented a sexual act; a half-open mouth and a seductive look – all contributed to the atmosphere of sexual initiation. Thus, (hetero)sexuality and sex were not taboos; they were publicly acceptable and represented in the advertisements (ibid., 59–60). The Croatian and Serb editions of Cosmopolitan from the 2000s show that a series of adaptations were made to the advertisements to make them culturally acceptable in the region. Compared to an American audience, readers in the Balkans obviously expected a more conservative approach that emphasised masculinity. The analysis of the 2012 Romanian edition of Cosmopolitan showed that attributes of a woman defined for target readers of the magazine were ravishing, strong, and feminine, corresponding to the previous observation that alternatives to the stereotyping of femininity in advertising have become visible since the late 2000s. The results of the analysis are contradictory. The Croatian and Serb regional editions of Cosmopolitan and the research on Bulgarian TV commercials discussed above seem not to confirm the hypothesis of the fading out of the ‘wild phase’ in the visual representation of sexualised femininities in advertising of the 2000s, or the 2010s at the latest. On the other hand, the young, beautiful, and strong models featured in the Romanian edition of Cosmopolitan and in print media generally support the hypothesis. Two things are important in this regard. First, nobody would expect unilinear developments. Second, research has focused primarily on mainstream advertising and not on emerging alternatives to its use of stereotypes, as might be found in Internet advertising. Unfortunately, social media advertising evades the attention of this study. With all due caution, I conclude that there are sufficient indicators that the phase of crude visualisation of femininities and masculinities in commercial media is coming to an end, paving the way for the emergence and affirmation of new femininities and masculinities.

 ew Femininities and Masculinities: The Beauty N and the Adventurer The public exposure of the female and male bodies in advertisements, in magazines, and on the Internet, an emphasis on eroticism and pornography, as well as the ambition to explore sexuality before, outside, or instead of marriage, have become everyday practices since early post-socialism, with a stronger emphasis in some countries than in others. The terms porno-chic culture and pornography were originally unrelated, as porno-chic culture described the ways that sex for its own sake had become more visible in contemporary Western cultures and in advertising as a normalising

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trend. In the post-socialist countries, the border between pornography and porno-­ chic culture became blurred in the ‘wild’ 1990s leading to the pornographisation of media culture. The pornographic display of the human body was considered by many as a symbol of liberation from the yoke of socialist sexual mores and the sexually provocative woman was not only considered a heroine of new femininity but also a pioneer of the market economy. The following section will deal with post-­ socialist pornography and its relationship to femininity, the second will touch upon new femininities and so-called ‘hyper-femininities’, and the third will briefly address new masculinities  – briefly because the available research material is rather meagre.

Pornography as Emancipation The process by which pornography became an economically significant subsector of the culture industries worldwide has been led by both demand and technology. Technology (video, DVD, Internet) has significantly lowered the barriers blocking entry into the ‘pornosphere’. Video cassette players were introduced in the 1980s, making moving image pornography accessible to domestic consumers, and in the same decade satellite communications delivered the pornography of one country to the TV screens of another. In the mid-1990s, the Internet enabled another qualitative leap for consuming sexually explicit materials in homes and privates spaces (McNair, 2002, 38–39). Internet pornography is distinct from other forms of pornography because of its accessibility, affordability, and anonymity (Klaassen & Peter, 2015, 721–22, 724, 726–28, 731). Long before, the communist parties in Eurasia Minor had criticised the pornography available on new media, reflecting tensions in the cultural climate of socialism between rather puritanic and more liberal sexual morality. In late socialism, the political elite began to entertain the idea of more openness in its treatment of topics pertaining to the body – sex, erotica, and to some extent softcore forms of pornography. This unorthodox departure from the previously puritanical approach to sexuality was necessitated by the growing influx of provocative materials from Western media such as Playboy and Penthouse (Ibroscheva, 2013, 92–93). Late Yugoslavia had no need for this kind of debate. Start was the first Yugoslav journal to use erotic images to promote a more liberal attitude toward sex. This strategy boosted circulation. Founded in 1969, Start published centrefolds of the Playboy type. The inclusion of nude women was seen as neither sexist nor exploitative of women but as liberating and modern because it borrowed much-admired models of media content from the West (Ibroscheva, 2013, 95). In Belgrade, pornographic films were screened in two of the city’s cinemas: Partizan near the railway station, and in the downtown Slavija. Yet in the 1980s it was still almost impossible to see a nude body on TV, let alone sexual intercourse (Nikolić, 2005, 135). From the beginning of the 1990s, however, pornographic films were run every night on Serbian television. In 1990, the third channel of Serbian state TV started to

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broadcast erotic films once a week in the late hours of the night. In 1991, articles of Yugoslav criminal law related to the prohibition of pornography were removed. However, when private TV station Palma started to show hardcore pornographic films every night at 2 a.m., the public was alarmed. The issue of adult films was even discussed in parliament. One of the leading political parties, the Serbian Radical Party, defended pornographic films by arguing that they would encourage sexual activity and consequently reproduction in times of war. Thus, in the beginning of the 1990s, pornography was integrated into Serbian nationalist politics (ibid., 135–36). This constellation continued well into the 2000s. In 2006, a survey of the Serbian popular dailies Kurir, Nacional, and Press examined the contents of the newspapers with an emphasis on misogyny, pornography, and political extremism on their cover pages. The result suggested that the link between pornography and the notion of warrior-like manhood evidently lived on in tabloid culture. The role of pornography was twofold: it supported the ideal of the warrior and macho on the one hand, and conservative ideology which distinguished between the ‘honest’ and family-­oriented woman of the patriarchal order and the ‘immoral’ woman to be ‘consumed’ as a sex object on the other (Kronja, 2006, 202–11). A survey conducted among young people in Belgrade in the late 2000s revealed that the attitudes of young men and women towards pornography resembled those of their contemporaries in Western European countries. Thirty-eight percent of the young respondents did not consume pornography or show a tendency towards promiscuous behaviour. They were inclined to establish stable and long-lasting relationships, and to conduct a regular sex life with one partner. Young men consumed pornography more than women, but one fifth of the young women said they viewed pornographic content. While female consumers had a more critical relationship to pornographic content and publishing of pornography in the media, young men were inclined to see pornography as a standard of sexual behaviour (Kordić & Babić, 2009, 5–16). While in socialist Yugoslavia pornography was not a taboo, it remained so in the other socialist countries. Prior to 1990, pornographic materials – mostly magazines and video cassettes – were smuggled into the Eastern Bloc and were available to a comparatively limited number of people (Ninov, 2001, 396). However, immediately after the breakdown of socialism, the fetishised bodies of Western supermodels appeared in some of the liberal journals targeted at women, replacing socialist-era images of sexless women. These journals also presented the female body as a source of power and means of financial improvement. Pornographic display of the human body, and especially of women’s bodies, was considered by many as ‘emancipatory’, freeing society from the yoke of socialist sexual mores (Băban, 2000, 247). This conclusion is supported by the observation that the female heroine in contemporary folk music appears mostly as the archetype of the prostitute. Perhaps the post-socialist boom in pornography and prostitution could be interpreted as liberation from the desexualisation of life under state socialism. The overly sexualised woman was not only considered a heroine of new femininity but also as a pioneer of the market economy and an entrepreneur, bravely breaking taboos. The image of the sexualised heroine was a resistive response to the idea propagated by socialist

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regimes that the ultimate fulfilment of the female character was only possible in family life (Ibroscheva, 2015, 149–53). In Bulgaria, the pornography market took on enormous dimensions starting with the first erotic magazines, published in 1990, to the sale of Emmanuelle at every street corner and Playboy photographs which periodically appeared in leading daily and weekly newspapers. Freely speculating with its own ideas of democracy, the ‘flesh market’ tried to defend its output, qualifying it as sexual education. The deficit in sexual literature and neglected sexual education before 1989 on the one hand, and the opportunity for free self-expression and for shedding inferiority complexes and doing away with censorship on the other, were at the core of the unprecedented interest in pornographic publications (Ninov, 2001, 395–98). Pornography became available to everybody  – from children and teenagers to their parents. Puritan attitudes to sex and the secrecy surrounding sex were replaced by mounting curiosity. Apart from viewing television pornography, mostly transmitted by satellite and available via Western TV channels, many Bulgarians started to buy VCRs. Pirated Western video cassettes flooded the market. Until around 2000, there was virtually no control or censorship, and pornography became universally available. Scenes of sodomy, paedophilia, sadomasochism, and anal and oral sex could be viewed by almost anyone. A survey discovered that most viewers of this type of pornography were aged 9 or 10, and over 50. A large proportion of consumers were also lonely, divorced, or had sexual problems (ibid.).

New Femininities – Self-Surveillance and Empowerment The short overview of pornography has shown that the visualisation of the uncovered body and participation in porno-chic culture were considered by many a form of liberation from the imposed socialist moral code. An unquantifiable number of women considered active engagement in porno-chic as a form of emancipation. This draws attention to the question of how social actors – mostly young women – reacted to the abruptly changing visual representation of femininities in the media and how they intended to visualise and perform it themselves. The previous section has analysed how new femininities were constructed in the media and advertising. The following will focus on the performativity of gender as a form of visualisation. Performativity is addressed here independently of the question of the financial, social, and cultural constraints women have been exposed to, because they are hard to reconstruct. It is also impossible to reconstruct the whole range of emerging forms of femininity; thus, the analysis will focus on some outstanding ones that have drawn scientific attention. However, before assessing the situation in Eurasia Minor, we should look at the wave of new femininities emerging in the West at around the same time. Against the backdrop of wider social, cultural, and political changes, the UK, to take one example, has witnessed the ascendancy of ‘successful women’ in media representations and in terms of educational achievement and labour market

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participation. In the media, a postfeminist heroine has appeared who is empowered and autonomous, as well as fun-loving and youthful. She regularly makes choices which overlap with traditional femininity and prefeminist ideals. Her attainments and success in education are frequently highlighted. In the labour market, the participation of young women has increased dramatically in the last 50 years and the gender pay gap has been progressively getting smaller (though by no means has disappeared). Significantly, these changes are increasingly presented as a ‘feminisation’ of education and of the labour market (Gerodetti & McNaught-Davis, 2017, 351–53). Feminist theorists have acknowledged the construction of such ‘new femininities’, suggesting that young women are imagined as the successors of social and political change in the broad discourse of ‘girl power’. The idealised subject of late modernity is flexible and individualised, and easily follows nonlinear trajectories to fulfilment and success. Increasingly, these are the characteristics demanded of young women because they are perceived to be the most confident and empowered of all the demographic groups affected by risk. Young women are often held to be key beneficiaries of a range of socio-economic changes that now characterise Western societies, and the neoliberal tropes of freedom and choice are also associated with this part of the population. New femininities construct success as a mainstream experience for young women. This neoliberal ideal of individualism sees success as obtained through making the right choices and through extensive effort; women who fail are rendered unimaginable or must take personal responsibility for their failings. Therefore, many commentators see third-wave feminist ideology and concepts such as choice, power, and independence as having been individualised, absorbed, and appropriated by neoliberal agendas (Budgeon, 2013; Gerodetti & McNaught-Davis, 2017, 351–353, 361). Among the variety of new femininities, a few examples should be underlined. For instance, the ‘makeover woman’ whose older female body is seen as inevitably abject and in need of radical reconstruction, now frequently including surgery; the beautiful, pregnant mother – the commodification of maternity under neoliberalism; the ‘sexual entrepreneur’, a postfeminist and neoliberal subject constructed from notions of sexual subjectification and through technologies of sexiness; the ‘camgirl’ who highlights women’s agency by producing forms of erotica and alternative pornographies while defying objectification and controlling the gaze; and finally, the sexy pop star who celebrates her sexualised self-representation while distancing herself from anything regarded as ‘slutty’ (Gill & Scharff, 2011, 1–9; Jackson & Vares, 2013, 134–136; Ringrose, 2013, 101–9, 99–101). Discourses of sexual agency have been central to the development of new femininities as part of a broader shift in which older markers of femininity such as homemaking skills and maternal instincts have been joined by those of image creation, body work, and sexual desire, most obviously online in blogs, chat rooms, and communities. Since the early 2000s, the Internet has offered unprecedented freedom to create, distribute, and access a much more diverse and interesting set of sexual representations and practices than were previously available. This involves a ‘deliberate re-sexualisation and re-commodification of bodies organized around

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notions of choice, empowerment, self-surveillance, and sexual difference. Women are asked to act as if this is freely chosen and as if they are agents’ (Attwood, 2013, 203–5). At this point, the Internet and blogospheres again come into play. The key point here is that with minimal cost and not much equipment, individuals can create self-­ images and distribute them via the Internet to audiences that may be potentially very large. A crucial question that must be addressed in this context is: who creates Internet content in the blogosphere? Although personal publishing makes it possible to create and disseminate content, the process is not that simple. Creation takes time and energy. To convince anyone to pay attention, effective content creators need skills like the ability to write well, to be persuasive, and to create high-quality videos, photos, or music. The Internet does not make good writing any easier or faster. The key to approaching this issue is stratification: are low-status people more likely to create content on the Internet or does the Internet reproduce high-status dominance (Blank, 2013)? Not much research has been conducted to answer this question. Research carried out in the UK by Grant Blank, published in 2013, determined three fields of content that required different levels of ability and skill to contribute to them appropriately. Whereas the fields of ‘skilled content’ and ‘political content’ demanded higher qualifications, the creation of ‘social and entertainment content’ (visiting SNSs, posting photos, and uploading video or music files) was most common. Age and marriage status significantly reduced production. Production was also reduced by being separated or divorced, and by having a higher income. This was the only field where income was statistically significant, and higher incomes actually reduced content production. Thus, social and entertainment content was more likely to be produced by non-elites: young, technically skilled people who were unmarried and had lower incomes (Blank, 2013, 591–2, 597–603, 607–8). Consequently, the blogosphere plays a significant role in the social construction of femininities, primarily, but also of masculinities – at least in the UK. However, the Internet is not used everywhere in the same way, and should not be treated as if it were. It should not be assumed that any part of the Internet, including personal publishing, has the same impact in all countries. Returning to Eurasia Minor, similar developments are observed on the phenomenological level: a variety of new femininities and the display of women’s sexuality evolving in neoliberal contexts. However, there are crucial differences on the social level: women are not considered new, victorious heroines in economic life, and the ‘new’ in ‘new femininities’ refers to comparison with socialist femininity, while notions of empowerment and practices of self-surveillance are embedded in the context of repatriarchisation and retraditionalisation. The overt display of women’s sexuality already began in the early 1990s: it was not confined to young girls as prime actors and was staged in concert halls, on DVDs, and on a few TV channels, mostly because Internet access was only provided to a sufficient number of households to create a mass audience around a decade later than in Western Europe. Even around 2010, blogospheres were not yet in popular use, as highlighted in Chap. 4. There is almost no research on blog content or on the activists in various areas of the

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blogosphere. However, research on the social stratification of Internet users in Georgia allows the conclusion that the mentioned findings in the UK cannot easily be extended to the South Caucasus countries. Research published in 2014 showed that the most common active Internet user in Georgia belonged to the upper social class, was an educated, young person (18 to 27 years old), and lived in the capital, Tbilisi. Interestingly, active Internet usage was not contingent on gender, and about 40% of both sexes reported using the Internet at least weekly. Education was an important factor in going online – only a quarter of those polled with completed secondary education or lower were frequent users, in contrast to 62% who had tertiary education. People belonging to a higher social class were more likely to be active users of the Internet; only 21% of members of lower social classes were users. Among the higher classes, Internet use reached 78%. The overwhelming majority of Georgian users were active social networkers, with 72% reporting using sites like Facebook to connect with their networks, family, and friends; 33% communicated via Skype, and 20% used e-mail. While 53% used the Internet to search for diverse information, there seemed to be little activity in terms of publicly discussing information and news. Only 3% of the Internet users reported blogging or reading blogs, and only 2% engaged in Internet forums (Turmanidze & Gabedava, 2014, 2–3). The wide absence of Internet blogs, however, does not mean that in the years following the collapse of socialism no dramatic social shift took place that transformed the visual self-presentation of women. Images of fashion models and beauty queens swiftly replaced the asexual socialist woman in the media. The worker/ mother heroine of the past was rejected and replaced with a full display of beauty, sexuality, and hyper-femininity (Ibroscheva, 2013, 116). Women responded to this situation by starting to create new femininities through investment in body care and by assuming Western practices, for example exercising. Beauty became a defining feature of femininity, both as an ideal and a necessity. This made beauty and body care an essential field of women’s activities. The cultivation of a beautiful body became a sign of independence and control, situating female agency in an empowered position and transforming the body into ‘body capital’ (ibid., 117). Because of the many advertisements for beauty products and fitness centres, the imported images of Western standards of beauty, and information related to health, nutrition, and the body that filtered into society through various media outlets, no one standard of beauty and a perfect body emerged, but a broad variety (Chin, 2011, 229–35, 240). The self-understanding of young women became intelligible within such a framework of attractive models of femininity, each with its own discursive elements, e.g. the beautiful, independent woman; the young, pretty girl; and the self-sacrificing, married woman who puts the family first (Svendsen, 1996, 8–12). In the early post-socialist years, being beautiful was considered a more urgent condition for young, unmarried girls than for married women. Although this requirement had prevailed in the socialist period, the beauty standard now moved towards Western ideals. Beauty was considered a primary instrument to attract a man, marry, and build a family. The quality of physical beauty was not only completed by respectable behaviour and the ability to attract men, however. It was also linked to

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the view that a woman has a sacred duty in life to please, help, and think of others. Pleasing others by being beautiful was one way of meeting this expectation (ibid., 8–12). But how to become a superwoman? Research in the case of Romania shows that after the fall of socialism, women were affected by global fitness trends and shifting standards of beauty; more specifically, they were exposed to Western images of idealised femininity and female beauty. Shifts in fitness trends in Romania around 2010 demonstrated a strong resemblance to those witnessed during the rise of fitness culture in the United States in the 1980s. In response to the growing influence of lifestyle, body consumerism, and global capitalism, critical research has argued that women were now challenged by the ‘post-socialist triple burden’ of family, fitness, and finances. The image of the socialist superwoman, which had once symbolised women’s strength, remained relevant in terms of the expectations of women in the new societal context (Chin, 2011, 229–35). Physical fitness became one of the characteristics of the new superwoman. In Romania prior to 1990, it was possible to practise aerobics in a few state-managed sports clubs, at a private, unofficial ballet school, and in Bucharest’s few big hotels catering to foreigners. From 1990 to 1994, the number of women taking part in aerobics at state-managed sports clubs doubled. Aerobics facilities in hotels were opened to the public and former ‘underground’ centres advertised to attract clients. In addition, new privately-run clubs were opened which combined aerobics, fitness, swimming pools, saunas, cosmetics salons, massage rooms, and bars. Doing aerobics at a state-managed sports club was by far the cheapest option, and many of the participants at such establishments were high school or university students. Making time and money available for the task of correcting one’s body became part of fulfilling social obligations and the personal dream or desire to look good. This new lifestyle stood in contrast to the traditional lives of women (Svendsen, 1996, 8–12). Body, beauty, and fashion ideals interacted to produce various types of the new and popular ‘superwoman’ ideal. One of them has already been discussed: the figure of the post-socialist ‘heroine’, the sexually provocative woman. Another type, widespread in Bulgaria and in most of the post-socialist countries of Eastern Europe, involved a fashion style bordering on porno-chic. The necklines of young women in particular plunged over demi-cup push-up bras, combined with a popular skirt length barely touching the very top of the high. Girls mastered the art of always bending at the knees rather than at the waist when leaning over. If women wore trousers, they were often cut as low as anatomically possible and after 2003 were combined with a new fashion of visible thong underwear. Exposed abdomens were obligatory for the course of the summer. Other popular looks were sheer blouses without bras, or white pants or skirts with dark, lacy lingerie visible underneath (Ghodsee, 2010, 163). Among the women to ostentatiously embody the new, emerging types of femininity were, and are, female celebrities. In the case of Romania, the three most popular women in the country, unsurprisingly, were sexualised and objectified representations of womanhood. The most popular feminine figure, and the woman most appreciated by the media around 2015, was Bianca Drăguşanu. She was a

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backdrop anchor in a TV show where she posed half naked and was most often presented to the public as a sexual object, i.e. very lightly dressed. Moreover, she was cast as a supporting figure for the men actually presenting the show, thus promoting the notion of the woman as the ‘little nude helper’ of men, without personality or intellectual value. The second most popular woman in Romania was Monica Columbeanu. She was a fashion model at the centre of a media scandal in which she was showcased as an illustration for the ‘Cinderella syndrome’. She had married a man over 40 years her senior, a millionaire who acted as her ‘protector’, when she was just 18  years old. The third controversial female figure to feature in the Romanian media was Mihaela Rădulescu. Although Rădulescu boasted that she was the author of bestselling books, one of them published under the title ‘Why Do We Love Men?’, her success as a ‘writer’ was based on copying the most popular author in Romania at that time, Mircea Cărtărescu, who had previously written a book called ‘Why Do We Love Women?’. Rădulescu’s recipe for winning media attention, like that of many other female celebrities, was to use her sexuality in a provocative manner. In a recent media scandal, Rădulescu published on her Facebook page an image of herself with her boyfriend, in which she posed as a tabletop on which the man was eating his lunch (Pop, 2016). Kaneva and Ibroscheva (2015) have proposed the term ‘strategies of mediated self-exposure’ to describe these performative acts, which include posing for erotic magazines or using sexualised visual messages in promotional and entertainment media disseminated through video, online, and print formats. What female media celebrities have in common with a certain type of female politician performing femininity and sexuality within post-socialist media culture is a penchant for using the media as vehicles through which to offer provocatively ‘packaged’ public displays of the body, enacting highly sexualised performances of femininity, and relating these performances to their careers. Focusing on the political stage, the authors examine, first, the strategies of mediated self-exposure deployed by female politicians to interrogate the gendered nature of post-socialist political culture as it intersects with commercial media culture. Second, they look at how female politicians choose to engage in sexualised strategies of mediated self-exposure in order to advance their political aspirations (Kaneva & Ibroscheva, 2015, 225–29). One of the examples presented by the authors is Elena Udrea, a high-profile Romanian politician and Minister of Regional Development and Tourism from 2009 to 2012. In November 2011, Udrea appeared on the cover of the fashion magazine Tabu (Taboo) wearing a tightly fitting, black rubber dress, knee-high shiny leather boots, and a bleach blonde ‘Charlie’s Angels’ hairdo. In the image, her outstretched arms appear to support a giant globe behind her, upon which one can discern the outlines of Romania’s then new tourism logo  – one of Udrea’s most controversial and widely known projects as minister. Her name appears in large print on the cover and the headline underneath reads: ‘Parables of Power’. Similarly to the previous examples, this image of Udrea makes a visual and symbolic connection between her airbrushed sexual appeal and her political power. Importantly, the visual composition of the cover mimics the May 2008 issue of Vanity Fair, which

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featured global pop star Madonna in a black leather bodice, striking the same pose (ibid., 232–34). The fact that Udrea declared her aspirations for top political office from the pages of a fashion magazine and chose to highlight her feminine appearance as one of her main assets was significant. It demonstrated the uniquely post-socialist blending of political ambition with glamour, sex, and fashion. Tabu’s choice of Madonna as the ‘prototype’ for the cover of an issue on powerful women suggests that the line between celebrity, sexual provocation, and political power was rather blurred in the post-socialist media environment. The hyper-sexualisation of mediated post-­ socialist femininities – including in the realm of politics – was, at least in part, a reaction to the memory of restrictive and dogmatic constructions of femininity by socialist regimes. At the same time, since the end of the Cold War a new generation had come of age – one without direct experiences or memories of the old system – for whom commercial and celebrity culture was not a novelty but the normal state of affairs (ibid., 232–34). Similarly, Balkan turbo-folk music and performance, with its roots in Serbia and Bulgaria but widespread in most of the Balkan countries (see Chap. 4), became extremely popular in post-socialism. The female turbo-folk stars contributed significantly to the creation of a new type of femininity and a new standard of beauty which became a trans-national measure of attractiveness and evolved into a model of sexual behaviour for young women. This new standard of beauty served a two-­ fold and contradictory function: (1) it allowed young women in Bulgaria, and across the Balkans, to feel empowered by means of a newly constructed sexual identity infused with markers of beauty directly borrowed from the West, and (2) it kept them firmly grounded in the local musical and cultural traditions of patriarchy and commodified by the new rules of the market economy (Ibroscheva, 2015, 149–53). At a turbo-folk performance, the singer – male or female – leads the show in the role of a pop star. Female singers became the most notable visual token associated with this music and the lifestyle it promoted. There are several explanations for the ‘gendering’ of this music genre. For one, along with the musical arrangement, chalga involved the need to perform a dance routine to repetitive rhythms, resembling Middle Eastern belly dancing. In the context of the Balkans, this type of sexuality was understood to be reserved exclusively for women. The singer’s body became a site of performance where sexuality was a key factor – female sexuality was appropriated and packaged to sell (ibid., 157–59). Thus, the singer needed to take care of herself, to be sexually appealing, and to emphasise her sexual attributes in all ways – if lacking, she had to implant them. Turbo-folk manipulated sexuality because it was needed for the purposes of advertising and making a profit (Nikolić, 2005, 133). From a feminist perspective, the entire musical form, with its visual aesthetics stressing women’s bodies as a site for performing a national spectacle, was nothing more than a politicised instrument for propaganda and national mobilisation. Thus, turbo-folk represented an ideological offshoot of Balkan patriarchy (Ibroscheva, 2015, 149–53). Interestingly, scholars no longer agree unanimously with this

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assessment and have introduced the motif of ‘feminine libidinal entrepreneurship’, rooted within neoliberal economies. This form of entrepreneurship entails deploying the libido not only for personal, but more importantly, for social and economic empowerment. Therefore, turbo-folk’s ongoing popular appeal can be considered as rooted in the promise of upward mobility and the possible repositioning, albeit temporarily, of the female performer away from precarity and lack of social power. In this context, the figure of the sponzoruša (gold digger or sponsored girl) as libidinal entrepreneur becomes crucial – she is a figure whose potentially subversive appeal has often been overlooked at the expense of moral panics. Gold diggers have been typically described as ambitious women who aggressively pursue rich men to secure a sponsor, and with him, their own financial future – love and romance are usually secondary in this equation. The goal of the turbo-folk performer and sponzoruša was typically marriage and/or securing long-term material prosperity. Post-socialist feminine libidinal entrepreneurship took advantage of the emerging social and economic hierarchies during the time of political transition and veered towards traditionally inappropriate uses of female sexuality, i.e. its deployment to amass capital rather than its being a vehicle of love (Jelača, 2016, 38–43). What made the gold digger into a star was when her image embodied certain recognisable features of the aggregate image of the star. Her image always retained an ‘earthy’ element: either in her name, always a folksy one, or something unpretentious in her public behaviour – a sign to the audience that although a celebrity she had been ‘saved’ from the sophisms of high society. To be appreciated as beautiful, the star had to weigh a certain number of kilogrammes and to cost her mate a certain amount of money. As a result, the tabloids might leave the reader in ignorance of her new hits, but would inform about the exact costs of star X’s recent cosmetic surgery or of her wardrobe (Gochev, 2017, 80–83). One of the most popular icons of turbo-folk culture, or even the most popular, was Ceca. The Serbian singer had the ability to transform turbo-folk and her position of stardom from a localised expression of crass nationalism into a transnational mediated phenomenon. Ceca has been portrayed as vulgar, attractive, the embodiment of a real Serbian woman, a sexy diva, a divine siren of emotional songs, a loving mother, and as the widow of a Serbian warlord. In a way, Ceca represented the epitome of the turbo-folk genre, whose most attractive performers were female (Ibroscheva, 2015, 153–54). She was both a turbo-folk performer and a sponzoruša. Her husband, Arkan (Željko Ražnatović), was a prominent Belgrade mafia boss in the 1990s and the commander of a paramilitary force known as ‘Arkan’s Tigers’ – later accused of ethnic cleansing in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo. He was a war criminal who was eventually murdered in Belgrade in 2000 (Nikolić, 2005, 133; Volčič & Erjavec, 2011, 35, 38). Ceca managed to claim regional success despite her close identification with some of the more controversial figures of Serb nationalism during the wars of the 1990s. She was appreciated as the quintessential Balkan diva, known for her seductive beauty and her violent past, and returned to the stage in 2003 after her husband’s assassination (Volčič & Erjavec, 2011, 35, 38). Svetlana Veličković, alias Ceca, was born in 1973 in a small Serbian village and rose from being a local to a national celebrity after she recorded her first album in

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1987. She successfully combined three essential aesthetic ingredients that would come to define the popular turbo-folk singer: beauty, rural origins, and urban style. From the beginning, her songs were romantic; dramatic love stories in which she obsessed about love as well as love of the homeland. Ceca’s records have sold more than ten million copies, mainly in the Balkan countries. During the wars of the 1990s, she frequently sang to Serbian soldiers on the front to support the cause and idea of a Greater Serbia. Ceca’s and Arkan’s glamorous wedding in February 1995 was a public spectacle par excellence. It was also organised as a media event for (national) consumption. The result of this publicity and marketing blitz was that Ceca broadened her audience and hence her media reach, which also translated into political influence. It was after the (in)famous wedding that she intensively promoted herself as a star and increased her hold on the public imagination, first in Serbia, and later across the Balkan region (Volčič & Erjavec, 2010, 106–7). The list of empowered new femininities and practices of self-surveillance is already long and could be significantly extended. One Bulgarian variant is the mutressa, the beautiful wife or mistress of the mutra (nouveau riche or ‘ugly face’). This type can be compared to the mentioned sponzoruša. According to the popular stereotype, a mutressa has a slim figure and struts around on high heels; she has carefully styled hair and wears sexy clothes that may include tight trousers and deep-cut or see-through blouses. Many of the fashion details preferred by mutressi are still popular in general: embroidered jeans, shiny threads and sequins, ankle-­ boots with needle-point heels, short skirts and tank-tops, a small handbag and large earrings, perfect make-up, dyed hair, and nail polish. Some dress from head to toe in the newest outfits. Since this requires a significant financial investment, this opportunity is mostly accessible to the affluent, among them chalga stars (Ranova, 2006, 26–29). This overview documents a variety of new femininities that have emerged since the early phase of post-socialism – from the heroine sexually provocative woman to the embodiment of the turbo-folk singer, Ceca; from women underlining their femininity to barely covered ones. It is striking that all these examples of new femininities stem from the Balkans and not the South Caucasus (Armenia and Georgia). This lack of research, however, is due to the regional scientific landscape which is not characterised by rich femininity research. Men would also have deserved a longer section. However, there are very few studies, mostly from Bulgaria and Serbia, on the visualisation of new, post-socialist masculinities – from the originally dominating ‘Goldfinger’ type to the ‘soft’ new-masculinity type.

New Masculinities – The Marlboro Man Hegemonic masculinities have expiration dates. Research literature, however, is in disagreement when it comes to the question of how hegemonic masculinity transforms in time and space. There are roughly two opposite schools of thinking within the community investigating masculinity. On the one hand, the advocates of

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hybridity seek to account for the emergence and consequences of recent transformations in masculinities. The hybrid transformations include men’s assimilation of bits and pieces of social identities coded as ‘gay’, or ‘feminine’, among others. A central research question in this literature considers the extent and meaning of these practices in terms of gender and sexual inequality (Bridges & Pascoe, 2014). Connell and Messerschmidt, on the other hand, have underlined that while hybrid masculinity forms may exist and might promote inequality in new ways, they are unconvinced that hybrid masculinities are illustrative of a transformation in hegemonic masculinity beyond local subcultural variation. Thus, they have argued that hybrid masculine forms have not significantly affected the meanings of masculinity at regional or global levels; hybridity has not become hegemonic (Messerschmidt & Messner, 2018, 745). Connell has emphasised that hegemonic and nonhegemonic masculinities are all subject to change because they come into existence in specific settings and under particular conditions. In the case of the former, a struggle for hegemony often takes place whereby older versions may be replaced by newer ones. The notion of hegemonic masculinity and nonhegemonic masculinities has subsequently opened up the possibility of change towards the abolition of gender inequalities and the creation of more egalitarian gender relations (ibid., 745–752). Turning to the Eurasia Minor countries and thus to regional hegemonic masculinities, there is hardly any evidence to support the hybridity thesis because signs of the incorporation of elements of identity typically associated with various marginalised and subordinated masculinities are scarce, especially with respect to gay or transgender identities. In the case of Bulgaria, it should be added that the first post-1989 years brought widespread deprivation and poverty. In the murky waters of transition, well-connected members of the nomenklatura, supported by the physical muscle of former sportsmen, in particular wrestlers, and in association with players active in the socialist grey economy, accumulated significant wealth in semi-legal or outright illegal dealings and through organised crime. Racketeering masked as insurance business, smuggling, the drug trade, and prostitution were some of the well-known sources of these riches. As already mentioned, the nouveaux riches and members of their entourages were generally referred to as mutri (singular mutra), a word that conjures up the stereotypical image of a man with a crew haircut and a thick neck, dressed in a brand-name training suit and leather shoes, and adorned with solid, golden neck chains. This stereotype was most widely used for the lower ranks of criminal groups because they were the most visible. Gradually, the revenues of mafia enterprises were laundered and entered legitimate business. The image of the stereotypical mutra largely disappeared from the public space and was replaced by a new and softer masculinity type displaying his wealth, for instance, through tailored clothing, as training suits were traded for business suits (Ranova, 2006, 26–29). In Serbia, the turbo-folk culture of the 1990s and early 2000s relied heavily on misogyny, heterosexism, and patriarchal supremacy to broaden its appeal. Here too, the ‘Goldfinger’ type dominated in the world of organised crime, cheap thrills, and short lives; it was, above all, about reinforcing militant structures centred on secret pacts and honour codes, and with a dog-eat-dog mentality (Dumančić & Krolo,

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2017, 159). However, the patriarchal and heteronormative content and style of 1990s turbo-folk and chalga have slowly given way to alternative visions of a Balkan masculinity. Even turbo-folk itself turned gay in the 2010s as homosexual men found an audience in the entertainment industry.4 For example, gay Bulgarian chalga singer Azis provoked the public with posters showing him as a transsexual (Kourtova, 2013). However, despite these important observations indicating an emerging fluidity with regard to the construction of masculinities, there has been no striking impact on the construction of regional hegemonic masculinity. More important is that pop-folk music is showing clear signs of separating itself from the nationalistic mythology of the 1990s, which insisted that ethnic exceptionalism defined regional masculine identities. Today, brands rather than patriotic symbolism determine the visual presentation of post-war Balkan masculinity. Men’s bodies, too, have become thoroughly commodified. Male pop-folk performers are meticulously styled, flaunt their tanned (if not always muscular) bodies, and inhabit modern, minimalist architectural spaces. If ever shown in nature, they are either in an exotic beach location or riding a motorcycle along highways and empty country roads (Dumančić & Krolo, 2017, 161, 164). The tanned male pop-folk singer reclining on a palm-lined beach or riding a motorcycle stands pars pro toto for more or less the whole region. My hypothesis therefore is that he represents the new regional hegemonic masculinity, which I will analyse more closely in the framework of the following bibliometric analysis. This hegemonic masculinity type is the ‘Marlboro Man’: the lone adventurer, dominant, authoritative, rational, and outdoor-oriented. Contrary to hegemonic femininity, he has no serious nonhegemonic rival (Dumančić & Krolo, 2017, 161, 164). This section has revealed a very broad range of new femininities: the postfeminist woman, the beautiful pregnant mother, the ‘sexual entrepreneur’, the ‘camgirl’, the beautiful independent woman, the young and pretty girl, the self-sacrificing married woman, the superwoman, the heroine prostitute, the Madonna-like erotic female politician, the turbo-folk and chalga star, the ‘feminine libidinal entrepreneur’, and the mudressa. Doubtlessly, this list could be considerably extended. However, I believe this would not significantly enlarge our knowledge. The question is rather, whether it is feasible to establish a kind of classification that reduces the number of femininities and gives them a hierarchical order. The same, of course, applies to masculinities, although data has already indicated that the number of masculinities is significantly lower. The fundamental questions to be solved now are whether it is possible to single out a utopian regional hegemonic femininity and masculinity, and second, whether this femininity/masculinity is strong enough to compete with the hegemonic femininity/masculinity in realia. Bibliometric analysis provides the methodology to give answers to these two questions.

 https://www.calvertjournal.com/features/show/9504/being-lgbtq-turbofolk-serbia-outrageouspop-gay-desire-mainstream (accessed on 15 July 2020).

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Bibliometric Analysis The following section presents the core body of literature exploited in search of data for writing this book. One hundred survey results were screened using content-­ related bibliometric analysis, thus achieving mixed qualitative-quantitative exploitation of the available scientific documentation. There is a constantly and fast-growing literature on scientometric and bibliometric methodologies in sciences and medical studies (Ball, 2018). Bibliometric methods are quantitative, but are used to make statements about qualitative features. The major purpose of all sorts of bibliometric exercises therefore is to transform something intangible into a manageable entity. However, the uncritical use of bibliometric indicators is widespread, especially when quantitative bibliometric objectives are linked to assertions about research quality. Citation analysis is a good example of this, since it usually couples a quantitative parameter with an evaluation of research performance. This coupling is based on the theoretical assumption of a simple linear relationship between scientific quality and citation counts. However, citation counts indicate impact rather than quality (Wallin, 2005, 261–62). Therefore, the humanities and social sciences are reluctant to apply impact factors as quality attributes (Ball, 2018, 17–18). Besides citation analysis, bibliometric methods are currently applied to publication analysis, bibliographing, establishing journal impact factors, citation processes, and data mining (Wallin, 2005, 262–67). Among the early methods of bibliometrics was content-related counting, reaching back to the 1920s and on which this analysis is based. This method is not all too challenging but avoids the mentioned pitfall of quantity becoming a qualitative attribute – on the contrary, quality becomes a quantitative attribute. This means that for this study I looked for qualitative assessments of femininities and masculinities in published bibliographic units in English and with reference to the region, and subsequently categorised and standardised them in order to make them comparable and quantifiable. In the literature on bibliometric methods, this process is referred to as the normalisation of citation data. Normalisation is challenging if a high number of citations from various disciplinary fields is involved (ibid., 268–70). In the case of Eurasia Minor, the quantity is low and most of the citations are from neighbouring humanity and social science disciplines. The categories for citation normalisation emerged from the material and were not imposed from outside. The material for this bibliometric analysis, synthesised into one hundred bibliographic entries (as already mentioned, this striking figure is accidental) derived from 73 publications covering thousands of magazine advertisements, hundreds of TV commercials, and the visual representations of men and women in more than a dozen daily newspapers  – mostly from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia – and in more than one hundred textbooks. Typically, an identified study was published as an article in a collected volume, or as a journal article. From each article, I derived one row of single statements, divided into a maximum of 17 columns. From dissertations, other monographs, and significant articles, I entered more than one crucial statement into an Excel database where this seemed appropriate.

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This process resulted in one hundred entries, which I divided into variables such as title, country, medium, reference,5 year of reference, year or period referred to, type of publication, central statement, type of femininity, type of masculinity, type of gender roles, and ‘women depicted as (stereotype)’. The various statements entered into columns, such as type of femininity, type of masculinity, type of gender roles, and ‘women depicted as (stereotype)’ had to be transformed into standardised statements or categories in order to make them quantifiable. Of course, this resulted in the simplification of nuanced statements, but the advantage has been the opportunity to establish a typology of femininities and masculinities and of depictions of women based on studies undertaken by mostly domestic researchers, or researchers who were born and grew up in Eurasia Minor countries. Thus, this typology did not originate in the ‘fantasy’ of a distanced, constructivist Western researcher, though some of the cited researchers indeed received their academic degrees from Western universities. I believe that it is extremely important to emphasise this, because such a procedure helps to avoid the trap of ‘othering’ as far as possible. The essentialist othering of a region and its culture by Western researchers can never be completely avoided, but should and can be methodologically minimised. The bulk of these one hundred entries originate from journal articles (almost 50%) and chapters in edited volumes (approx. one third) (see Graph 6.1). Most of the studies relate to the region, but 12 deal with international trends. Around 40% of the domestic studies investigate advertising in magazines, visual representations in (fashion) magazines and films, while the rest of the material is drawn from TV advertising and TV programmes, newspapers, textbooks, videos,

5  Akanyıldız (2015), 28–9; Arslan and Koca (2007); Arslan (2015), 239–48; Bento-Ribeiro (2015), 10–14, 19–23; Berariu et al. (2010), 661–3; Blumberg (2007), 10; Cetin and Berfin (2014), 2474; Chin (2011), 229–35; Crăciun (2017), 55–7; Çubukçu (2016), 118–24; Dhamo et al. (2005), 22, 31–3; Dönmez-Colin (2008), 156–70; Dönmez-Colin (2016), 145–8; Dumančić and Krolo (2017), 159, 161, 164, 167, 173; Eisend (2010), 418–36; Epure and Vasilescu (2014), 647; Ermann (2013), 181–2; Frank (2016), 68–9; Furnham and Paltzer (2010), 217–23; Furnham and Paltzer (2011), 1–7; Ghinea (2013), 3–36; Ghodsee (2007), 32–34; Gill (2014), 95–107; Gökarıksel and Secor (2009), 6–7; Gökarıksel and Secor (2015), 2581–93; Gürkan and Serttaş (2017), 402–7; Hortaçsu and Ertürk (2003), 2017–2024, 2034; Ibroscheva (2007), 410–6; Ibroscheva (2012), 108–9, 112–17; Ibroscheva (2013), 94–5, 101–4, 120–27; Ibroscheva (2015), 149–53, 159–60; Iordanova (1996–1997), 24–9; Isanović (2006), 52–75; Jelača (2016), 38–43; Kaneva and Ibroscheva (2015), 229; Kaneva (2016), 7–8; Kara and Eşitti (2017), 220; Karintzaidis (2016), 114–9; Keremidchieva (2015), 113–25; Kešetović (2013), 24–6, 57–8; 201–5; Kılıcbay and Binark (2005), 289–92; Kirova and Slavova (2012), 72–3, 77; Kocamaner (2017), 675–714; Kotseva (2014), 27–9, 40–70; Kronja (2006), 193, 201–11; Kronja (2008), 67–80; Kurkela (2007), 148, 157, 164; Londo (2006), 134–58; Majstorović (2006), 1100–2; Millan and Elliott (2004), 476–90; Morris (2006), 13–17; Morris (2014), 244–6, 250–7; Moss (2012), 352–66; Murtic (2015), 109–10; Nicolaescu (1995), 92–4; Nikolić (2005), 133; Orta (2013), 570; Özcan (2010), 12–3, 77–83, 247–8; Pajnik (2012), 108–9; Ranova (2006), 26–9; Sandıkcı and Ger (2007), 195–201; Savaş (2015), 108–114; Schroeder and Zwick (2004), 21–2, 44–7; Silova (2016); Spahić Šiljak (2008a), 63–74; Spahić Šiljak (2013), 127–9; Spahić-Šiljak (2014), 185–200; Suciu et al. (2012), 527–9; Suner (2010), 163, 173–4; Tsichla and Zotos (2013); Tsichla and Zotos (2016), 991–1000; Uray and Burnaz (2003), 77–86; Zotos and Tsichla (2014), 15–6.

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Graph 6.1  Type of publication

Graph 6.2  Media type

and other media (see Graph 6.2). ‘Intermedial’ refers to contributions extending over more than one media genre. Of interest are the national origins of these studies and the countries they deal with. Almost 50% of the studies are authored by Turkish (27) and Bulgarian (21) scholars, dealing with Turkey and Bulgaria, respectively. These two countries are

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16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0

Graph 6.3  Year of publication

followed by Serbia (8), Romania (7) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (6). The question of the visual representation of men and women is hardly addressed by authors from, or dealing with, the countries of the South Caucasus. This region contributed only one study (Armenia) to the body of 73 studies. The frequency rate of publications reflects the growth of visual studies. As mentioned in the introduction, the countries of the South Caucasus are still almost completely absent in this field, whereas the Balkan countries (Turkey included), which also displayed very low production in the 1990s, generated a significant number of publications in the 2000s. These continued to increase in the 2010s (see Graph 6.3). Turning again to the methodological procedure: generally one article was transferred into one entry row consisting of the above-mentioned columns. Monographs such as that by Elza Ibroscheva (2013) provided several entries because the extensive content of a monograph usually comprises various key statements. Most of the entries, though not all, provided statements for all of the defined columns. In the first case, the result of a statistical table or graph was 100, in the latter case, less than 100. The selection of articles/monographs was based on intensive literature research conducted until the end of 2018. Eventually, only articles/monographs in English were included. This was partly due to the fact that I could only include material in languages accessible to me. My ignorance of the South Caucasus languages most likely led to the under-representation of Caucasian secondary literature in my collection, but the fact that hardly any literature on visual representations of femininities and masculinities in the post-socialist era exists in English indicates that my language-skill deficit and the lack of research published in English combined to cause this imbalance. However, it should be underlined that with the exception of Bulgaria and Turkey, this kind of research is weakly developed in most of the Balkan countries, too. One could speculate about the reasons for this deficit, but this is not

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the proper place to do so. My selection includes most of the relevant media types. Almost all the studies, except for seven (entered as ‘intermedial’ in Graph 6.2), concentrate analysis on one specific type of media such as fashion catalogues, fashion shows, magazine advertising, or TV advertising and videos. The vast range of visual representations on the Internet as well as the individual production and distribution of femininities, masculinities, and LGBTIQ representations in the blogosphere were not excluded by intention, but de facto constitute a deficit due to the almost complete lack of scientific studies in this area. Of the one hundred entries analysed here, 12 originated from international studies with the purpose of enabling comparison between specific developments in the region and more general international developments. As already mentioned in the introduction, relevant studies were still very rare in the 1990s but increased significantly in the 2000s – a trend that intensified in the 2010s. However, the publication year of a scientific work is only one side of the story; the year or the period referred to is the other, and often more interesting, aspect. Table 6.1 shows that approximately 34 studies referred to the 1990s, around 48 to the 2000s, and around 14 to the 2010s. This suggests that the 1990s were basically not studied from the perspective of that decade but from a later one, whereas the 2000s and 2010s were analysed with a lesser time gap, though this may change in the coming years with additional, new studies. The relatively balanced distribution of studies on the 1990s and 2000s allows the conclusion that there are no significant temporal conjunctures with regard to the temporal framework of studies. The quantifiable results allow us to determine five draft fields of utopia, namely the elaboration of one hegemonic type of masculinity and one hegemonic type of femininity, supplemented by three nonhegemonic femininities. The types emerged through the frequent repetition of statements in the surveys included in the corpus. Starting with the masculinity and femininity types, the most remarkable difference between them was that hegemonic masculinity appeared to have no nonhegemonic masculinities as potential rivals, whereas hegemonic femininity has four nonhegemonic femininities as potential contenders. Graph 6.4 shows that the masculinity type ‘the lone adventurer, dominant, authoritative, rational, outdoor-oriented’6 is clearly hegemonic, whereas the religious ‘pious and bearded’ type and the secular ‘powerful and family-oriented’, ‘violent’, and ‘tolerant’ types play a marginal role and are not even listed as nonhegemonic. Of the four quantitatively prevailing femininity types, two types stand out with an almost equal number of ‘votes’: the ‘beautiful housewife’ and the ‘displayed body’ types. The main reason why I privilege the ‘beautiful housewife’ type as hegemonic and downgrade the ‘displayed body’ superwoman as nonhegemonic is that the first primarily applies to married women and the second (as well as the third) to unmarried ones. In societies that clearly perceive, with little deviance, married women as fully integrated and unmarried ones after a certain age with some

6  The femininity and masculinity types mentioned from here on are based on the quantifiable categories I created on the basis of the material used for the bibliometric analysis.

Bibliometric Analysis Table 6.1  Reference of Studies to Year or Period

211 Reference to (year, period) 1971–2005 1980s 1990s/2000s Mid-1990s-mid-2000s 1990s Early 1990s 1992 1997 1998–1999 Late 1990s/early 2000s Early 2000s 2000s 2000–2004 2000–2008 2001 2004 2005 2006 2008 2009 2000s, 2010s 2005, 2011 Early 2010s 2010s 2010–2012 2011 2012 2016 Result

No. 1 2 7 1 19 1 2 2 1 1 1 20 1 1 1 4 4 6 1 2 2 1 4 4 1 4 4 1 99

Interim results

ca. 34

ca. 48

ca. 14

suspicion, the unmarried superwoman type cannot really claim the status of hegemony. However, what unites the two types is the clear prevalence of traditional secular visualisations of young women (see Graph 6.5). The third type, ‘strong and beautiful’, refers most likely to the Western new femininities emerging out of a neoliberal context and of discourses of sexual agency. The latter are seen as central to the development of new femininities as part of a broader shift in which older markers of femininity, such as homemaking skills and maternal instincts, have been joined by those of image creation, body work, and sexual desire (Attwood 2013, 203). The fourth type, or third nonhegemonic femininity type, relates to Muslim women who cover most of the body when in public. Graph 6.5 displays this type as almost as strongly represented as the third type, ‘strong and beautiful’. This is relativised by the differentiation into ‘pious woman’ and ‘Islamic-chic’ woman

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Graph 6.4  Masculinity type

opposing strong and beautiful other housewife and beautiful displayed body covered body 0

5

10

15

20

25

Graph 6.5  Femininity type

(Table 6.2). Interestingly, women wear clothing that signals religiosity much more frequently than men. Since the countries of Eurasia Minor with a Muslim population also have a strong or even dominant secular tradition, the Muslim woman cannot claim hegemony. The same applies to masculinity with the largely overlapping appearance of religious and non-religious identities. Table 6.2 analyses how women are depicted according to the survey material. An analogous table for men cannot be compiled because research on visualisations of men is rare and consequently statements about how men are stereotypically depicted hardly exist. The overwhelming depiction of women can be categorised as ‘sexy,

Bibliometric Analysis Table 6.2 Women depicted as...

213 Women depicted as… sexy, sexual object, sexualised commodified, oversexed, eroticized, nude, beautiful, porno-chic pious woman alternative subordinated to men, dependent Islamic-chic other Result

no. 27 7 4 3 2 6 49

Graph 6.6  Frequency of mentioned gender roles

sexual object, sexualised commodified, oversexed, eroticised, nude, beautiful, porno-chic’. The frequency of statements relating to this category loosely corresponds to the frequency of statements relating to the categories ‘beautiful housewife’ and ‘displayed body’ in Graph 6.5. The depiction of women as ‘Western’ or a Western-oriented ‘alternative’ to this mainstream is rare and mentioned only four times (15%). The alternative to the (Muslim) ‘pious woman’ is ‘Islamic-chic’, which is mentioned two times (28%) compared to seven entries under ‘pious woman’. Graph 6.6 presents a classification of the gender roles of men and women appearing in 95 entries. The clearly predominant category is ‘traditional’. In most cases, the gender role of women classified as ‘traditional’ is characterised as home-based, subordinated to the husband, taking care of the household, and not working outside the home. The corresponding role of men is determined by attachment to the public sphere, domination in the family, taking care of cars and other technical equipment, and breadwinner. The classification ‘traditional (intended progressive)’ means traditional from the etic perspective of the Western observer but progressive from the

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emic perspective. This is especially relevant with respect to the 1990s and 2000s when pronounced alternatives to puritanical socialist gender-role ideals were explored: ‘Sexuality on display became a new form of rebellion against the established artificial aesthetic norms and stagnant gender roles prescribed by the communist ideology’ (Ibroscheva, 2013, 128). ‘Progressive’ in this sense also includes the depiction of women as ‘sexy, sexual object, sexualised commodified, oversexed, eroticised, nude, beautiful, porno-chic’ (Table  6.2). The entry category ‘progressive’ applies to, for instance, women working in a job outside the home and sharing the household duties with a husband or partner. Islamic progressive’ is a category related exclusively to women and describes Muslim women who are fashion-conscious and wear ‘Islamic-chic’ rather than dress in modest Islamic style. This woman might have a job and her own income. She might perceive herself as an example of new Muslim femininity. ‘Traditional and Islamic progressive’ refers to married women who are not employed outside the home and take care of the household and children, but follow Islamic-chic fashion. What we see in these tables and graphs is an overwhelmingly traditional picture of visualisations of femininities, masculinities, and gender roles in the region. Most of the nine mentions of ‘progressive’ (Graph 6.4) are related to Western-oriented cinema films. Also, the category ‘alternative’ in Table 6.2 is mostly related to examples of Western origin. Similarly, the entries for the category ‘strong and beautiful’ in Graph 6.5 refer to Western models of new femininity. Interestingly, the Marlboro Man as the regional hegemonic masculinity  – ‘the lone adventurer, dominant, authoritative, rational, outdoor-oriented’ (Graph 6.6) – overlaps strongly with one of the ideals of masculinity in Western advertising: ‘A standard motif in Western advertising is the “hero” shot – a single man within an image without a family, wife, or other heterosexual markers’ (Schroeder & Zwick, 2004, 29–35). This ‘solitary hero’ image, however, does not necessarily equal hegemonic masculinity in the sense of Connell’s regional or global hegemonic masculinity. I do not want to go further at this point and join the discussion of Connell’s concept of the ‘hegemonic’ status of a transnational business elite (see, for example, Elias & Beasley, 2009) because I consider it premature to equate the Marlboro Man with the transnational business elite type at this stage of research. The regional hegemonic type of femininity, ‘beautiful housewife’ as well as the nonhegemonic ‘displayed body’ superwoman (both traditional) and the progressive ‘strong and beautiful’ type of femininity are Western-oriented but with noticeable differences. The first is that the ‘strong and beautiful’ category has become increasingly mainstream in the West, whereas in Eurasia Minor it is still relatively marginal. The second distinguishing aspect derives from the fact that ‘the possible range of new femininities was heavily influenced by ideas and images imported from the West, although they had to be adapted and synchronised with local realities and aspirations’ (Kaneva, 2016, 7). Therefore, ‘post-socialist media culture often went beyond simply copying Western media trends and took them to new extremes in their local adaptations’ (Kaneva & Ibroscheva, 2015, 229). One of the preferred adaptations to local aspirations was ‘a slim body that struts with a swing on high heels; carefully styled hair that reveals the many hours spent at the hairdresser’s studio; sexy attire that may include tight pants and deep-cut or see-through blouses,

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jeans with embroideries, shiny threads and sequins, ankle-boots with needle-point heels, short skirts and tank-tops, a small purse and large earrings, perfect make-up, dyed hair, and nail polish’ (Ranova, 2006, 26). In Bosnian-Herzegovinian Muslim culture, however, ‘the most influential image of a Bosnian Muslim woman is that of a mother, portrayed as a keeper and transmitter of Islamic religious values’ (Spahić-­ Šiljak, 2014, 187). In Turkey, Islamic ‘styles completely cover body and hair, although they may be quite skin-fitting and reveal the shape of the body’ (Gökarıksel & Secor, 2015, 2591). This overwhelmingly traditional picture of utopia, of visualisations of femininities, masculinities, and gender roles in the region (excluding LGTBIQ persons), however, consists of snapshots unevenly distributed over the period from roughly 1990 to 2015. This is important because refinement of the analysis reveals a dynamic shifting from traditional to progressive. Graph 6.3 informs that in the ‘wild 1990s’ only few visualisation studies were published, namely two. In the 2000s (2003–2010) the number was 39, and between 2001 and 2017, 59. Table 6.1 shows that approximately 35 out of one hundred survey entries refer to the 1990s, around 45 to the 2000s, and about 15 to the early 2010s; in other words, roughly three quarters of the entries refer to the period before 2010 and only 15% to later years. If pooled together in a table, the result of the entries is overwhelmingly traditional. If split according to periods, the entries linked to the 1990s emerge as distinctly traditional, those referring to the 2000s appear as traditional with some progressive exceptions, and the few entries with respect to the 2010s already indicate an overwhelmingly progressive value. To conclude this short yet time-consuming and significant bibliometric analysis, the seemingly broad variety of femininities reflected in the literature can be narrowed down through quantitative bibliometric content analysis. The result is surprising but not completely unexpected: utopia reverses realia. The submissive woman and the repressive man turn into the beauty and the lone adventurer. What women desire and what is already embodied in the corpus of visual representations of femininities clearly differ from hegemonic realia. The strong and independent woman type that was long unidentified in the wide sea of porno-chic has ascended and already become a competitor to the traditional married and beautiful housewife and the (still) unmarried young woman who displays her body. The latter type remains the main representative of porno-chic culture. Meanwhile, the hegemonic Marlboro Man of utopia (‘the lone adventurer, dominant, authoritative, rational, outdoor-oriented’) has retained some of the characteristics of realia: he is still dominant and authoritative, but his patriarchal power is declining. He is, or wants to be, solitary, without family obligations and responsibilities. His ideal is to remain unmarried, to chance on a young woman out there on the prairie, smoke a couple of cigarettes with her afterwards, trample out the open fire and say goodbye. The overwhelmingly traditional picture of utopia emerging from the period of retraditionalisation – the ‘wild 1990s’ and not-so-wild 2000s – has proven temporary, starting to fade out in the 2010s at the latest. Of course, this process of disappearance will never end completely, neither globally nor in Eurasia Minor, but the utopia of femininities and masculinities mirrored in their visual representations

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seems to be reversing realia, the seemingly endless one-way street into retraditionalisation. To sum up: it is not overstated to say that the visual representation of femininities and masculinities were seen to undergo a profound turn between late-socialism and post-socialist times. This break was experienced by all genders, but primarily by heterosexual women because they were expected to embody sexual liberation from confining socialist mores, whereas men made themselves responsible for the establishment of a new public order in the spheres of politics and the economy. While in socialism advertising in a capitalist sense was not implemented and public displays of fashion, beauty, eroticism, and sexuality were avoided, young women became driving forces of consumerism in the subsequent post-socialist period and their bodies were transformed into desired commodities in advertising and marketing. This process was boosted by a rapidly growing new media landscape which opened up the wide field of porno-chic to commercialisation. By transmitting visual references mainly from the West, the visual media played a pioneering role in destroying ideologically manipulated socialist imagery, but failed miserably to support the establishment of a new gender order based on equality. Gender equality in practice, as well as in imagery, was considered by the media part of socialist heritage that had to be overcome. Consequently, the tabloid press in particular, private TV stations, less respectable women’s magazines, and advertisements started to promote images of nudity, hyper-femininity, eroticism, and the fetishised bodies of Western supermodels. However, not only did a profound turn take place between late-socialism and post-socialism, but there was also a noticeable shift during the post-socialist decades. From the mid-2000s, evidence of a turn away from trivial porno-chic in the visualisation of femininities was perceptible, intensifying in the 2010s. Changes in the depiction of women’s bodies in newspapers and magazines, the emergence of gay and lesbian films and of gay singers in popular chalga and turbo-folk music, as well as more varied visual representations of femininities and masculinities in advertising in diverse media genres, indicate a turn from porno-chic to ‘global chic’.

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Conclusions – Realia and Utopia

Emphasising 1989–1991 as the period in which a new world order was established meanwhile has the novelty value of carrying coals to Newcastle. The confrontational constellation of two ideological, economic, and political blocs was now futile. Instead, it was substituted by a more plural order with a greater number of players on the global political stage and a liberal market economy of global dimensions and without any serious rival. Consequently, more countries than ever were ruled by legitimate governments and have been rapidly included into the information-based digital world. These structural changes on the macro-level have had diverse repercussions on local, regional, and national levels and raised wide-ranging expectations. The identities of men and women as well as of LGBTIQ people were affected by the rearrangements of these turbulent years, especially in the former socialist countries. In addition, Turkey, a witness of the Islamic revolution in neighbouring Iran, was directly impacted by the subsequent wave of Islamic revival in the region. Until then, the gender regimes of the socialist countries as well as of Kemalist Turkey had been stable. The socialist governments had originally emphasised ideals of a ‘new man’ and a ‘new woman’, ending up with very modest and puritan visions of them, while secular Turkey had aimed to establish modern gender relations liberated from religious constraints and inherited cultural norms, and instead saw an emerging Muslim bourgeoisie that condemned Western modernity and its gender values. These two models became profoundly confused around 1990, not only culturally, economically, politically, and socially, but also as a result of the liberalisation of media markets, which had a significant impact on representations of femininities and masculinities. The new media environment established new conventions of visually representing femininities and masculinities, contributing to the popularisation of a porno-chic culture and a veiling-chic culture. Moreover, the arrival of the digital age created digital visuality, thus enabling means of self-presentation in previously unknown dimensions. One of the aims of this book is to make the reader aware of the importance of the visual representation of femininities and masculinities in the renegotiation of gender relations in post-socialism and post-Kemalism. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 K. Kaser, Femininities and Masculinities in the Digital Age, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78412-6

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More than ever before in history, gender troubles and struggles were reflected in, and accompanied by, a huge amount of conflicting visual representations of femininities and masculinities in public and private media. Frequently, magic power has been ascribed to pictures, which are not only able to document merciless reality but also to produce bright visions. Of course, texts may do the same, but the processes of seeing and reading differ – there is a difference between taking in a whole story at a glance and reading about it in endless sequences. My extensive occupation with family, gender relations, and kinship, and my intensifying interest in visual cultures in recent years, resulted in the decision to invest time in research for this book. The book aims to correlate the reality of existing gender relations – realia – in the Eurasia Minor region, as reflected primarily in sociological and demographic research, with the visual representations of gender relations in the media and, first and foremost, with their reality-based visual projections into an imagined utopia. To make one point very clear, utopia does not include a prognosis or a projection into the future; utopia is a locus of desire – of the desirables of men and women – it is self-created as well as co-created by external sources. Utopia is nothing more than the intrinsic interrelation of the internal ‘picture galleries’ stored in our brains with the unstructured mass of external pictures we are increasingly exposed to in the digital age. My research interest focused on the desirable features and expectations of roles, performances, and the identities of men and women expressed in the visual representation of femininities and masculinities. Textual and visual representations of one and the same thing can be very different. One of the most significant differences in creating texts and creating images, and thus between reading and seeing, lies in the ‘wholeness’ of images. A single image can express the desire of a whole generation; a text can rarely do the same because it is based on sequence and requires justification, reasoning, and a logical conclusion. Desirables emerge at the intersection of individual images and the external structures determined by economic and social constraints. Individual images and structures impact on each other mutually. However, this study, which looks at 15 countries with a total population of around 160 million, cannot investigate the mutuality of the individual and the structure, but must focus on the external structures  – in this case established by visual entrepreneurs  – who have always incorporated traces of collective individuality. Visual culture is seen here as being created and actively creating at the same time. Visual images create desires, but not necessarily the desires that the visual entrepreneur had intended to create. He or she works within the framework of mutuality and can only create desirables successfully as long as they are accepted by the collective individuality. The power of pictures can change our performative appearance just to the degree we agree with. One of the aims of the book is to trace the changes reflected by the visual representations of femininities and masculinities; however, this has two theoretical implications that require careful consideration. The first is that the picture has no power per se; rather, its ‘miraculous’ power consists in our tendency to ascribe a certain meaning to pictures. Isolated pictures possess no meaning. Visual representations, therefore, have no a priori meaning; they assume power only when powerful meaning is attached to them, for instance if

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we consider visualised femininities and masculinities as positive idols. The second aspect is that manhood and womanhood are socially constructed within specific historical and contemporary contexts and constraints. One of the interesting things this study has revealed is that the demographic realia of gender relations have not changed very much in the course of the previous three decades. Age at marriage has increased and fertility rates decreased, but the region as a whole is still far from the Second Demographic Transition typical of Western societies already for decades. Many of the existing demographic features remind us of characteristics of patriarchal ideologies, such as high rates of nuptiality, low rates of cohabitation and single parenthood, high rates of gender-biased abortion, and low acceptance of LGBDIQ orientations. In the early post-socialist years, widespread patriarchal morality was seemingly counteracted by a rapidly emerging hegemonic porno-chic culture. However, this hegemonic culture, represented, for instance, by popular chalga and turbo-folk music, did not alter gender relations during the first one to two decades of post-socialism. On the contrary, it confirmed them because the lives of porno-­ chic stars were interpreted as an exceptional inversion of one’s own life. The extreme tension between the lasciviousness of visualised femininity and patriarchal mores is one of the two most prominent characteristics of the region. When people and the media started to question the traditional gender orders in the post-socialist countries and Turkey, a plurality of new non-hegemonic femininities and masculinities emerged. I have condensed them into two types or models: porno-chic and veiling-chic. Although I am tempted to call these two models hegemonic for the 1990s and 2000s, they have been losing their hegemonic attractivity. Their initial attractiveness was enhanced by their media presence resulting from the liberalisation of the media markets. Many new magazines and newspapers appeared, but, except for in Turkey, the regional markets are relatively small and only popular products survived, such as publications counting on sex appeal as a sales strategy. Liberalisation also enabled the appearance of religious media products, as its conflation with revitalised Islam opened new markets for ‘pious’ consumption. Because of their explanatory character, the two conceptual pairs of realia and utopia, and porno-chic and veiling-chic, are central to this study. Realia and utopia explain the stringent interrelation of the real and the desirable – the interrelation of internal and external pictures. Porno-chic and veiling-chic prototypically explain the visually represented performativity of femininity and masculinity in the first one to two decades of post-socialism and post-Kemalism. Besides these two explanatory axes, each chapter has contributed important pieces to the puzzle.

Chapter Results The second chapter defines the frame of the region which I have called ‘Eurasia Minor’ and which encompasses over 15 countries on both sides of the Bosporus with regard to ethno-religious composition, contemporary society, as well as political, economic, and social developments in the past three decades. Aside from the

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considerable differences between Turkey, with its Western-style democratic orientation, and the rest of the region with its socialist past (apart from Greece), these two ‘blocs’ share two important communalities: (1) their political, economic, and social reorientation from around 1990; this was more drastic in the post-socialist countries, while in the case of Turkey change primarily resulted from the softening of the course of strict secularism, opening the doors for an Islamic revival. And (2), economic liberalisation which significantly impacted on gender relations insofar as the state retreated as the main provider of social security. In the post-socialist countries, this withdrawal resulted in the shift of social responsibilities from public institutions to family and kinship networks and a drastic increase in labour migration, whereas the Turkish economy started to boom after 2000. The privatisation of economic and social caretaking translated into the reinforcement of patriarchal relations, which was more strongly experienced in the post-socialist countries than in Turkey. However, this increasing acceleration of – in my opinion, temporary – retraditionalisation was neither unilinear nor were countermeasures lacking. Starting around 2005, each Eurasia Minor country passed a series of laws aiming to achieve gender equality. Not only was legislation modernised, but accompanying institutions were created to supervise the implementation of the new laws. EU member countries and countries with an EU membership perspective were doubtlessly most advanced in this regard. In some cases, it was quite difficult for the respective parliamentary bills to succeed, especially when concepts of equality included LGBTIQ rights. The most pronounced resistance was articulated by religious circles. The biggest problem, however, remains the implementation of equality laws. Although the most fervent opposition has meanwhile been overcome, it is still extremely difficult for women’s organisations to find positive social support for their battle against social injustice and gender inequalities. These gender inequalities are the focus of the third chapter that deals with the realia of gender relations. It discusses the results of some renowned international inequality surveys which reveal a clear European north-west to south-east rift regarding gender equality. This rift is historically entrenched and hard to overcome – also because the ideologies and discourses of manhood and womanhood across Eurasia Minor are still noticeably patriarchally biased. The idea of the complementarity of man and woman, strongly emphasised by religious forces, seems to be broadly acknowledged in these societies. Complementarity, an explanatory model for patriarchal relations, underlines the ‘natural’ differences between heterosexual men and women and defines the husband as breadwinner and the wife as confined to caring for the household and family. In this model, there is no place for other sexual identities. Gays, lesbians, and transgender people face hostile rejection, and in the South Caucasus countries gay pride parades can still not be conducted without serious incident. Also, the demographic features of the Eurasia Minor countries show a patriarchal bias. While the Second Demographic Transition has been in full swing for decades in the West, this seems not to be the case in Eurasia Minor. The features of the transition, such as low nuptiality, delayed marriage, a large number of unmarried people, high cohabitation rates, high divorce rates, and the decoupling of marriage and reproduction, are not widely established in the region – with

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the notable exception of higher age at marriage in most countries and exceptional cohabitation rates in Bulgaria. The predominance of patriarchally influenced demographic behaviour is underlined by noticeably biased gender-related abortion rates in the Western Balkans and the South Caucasus. All this data culminates in gender-­ biased hegemonic femininity and masculinity. Hegemonic femininity is characterised by the figure of the (pious) mother and submissive, chaste wife, whereas hegemonic masculinity in the region is characterised by toughness, strength and protectiveness, an inclination to violence, a distinct tendency to oppress wives, a latent concept of man’s superiority over women, homophobia, a tendency to unprotected sex, and a preference for male descendants. Variations of this masculinity manifest themselves in various regional and local forms, such as in the figures of the overt frajer, the semi-criminal lawbreaker, the homosocial friend, and the loser of post-socialist transformation. The fourth chapter deals with some of the agents, producers, and transmitters of realia and utopia  – the media, the advertising industry, the fashion industry, and ‘religious entrepreneurs’. As intermediaries in various functions and active in a range of fields, they have both incorporated and translated social moods into economic profit (with the exception of the religious actors) and co-created utopia by constructing the desirable, primarily through imagery. The increased media staging of femininities and masculinities in the digital age has significantly contributed to the creation of porno-chic culture and veiling-chic culture. In an apparent contradiction, these activities, along with those of the fashion industry, have opened the door for counter-action in the form of new femininities that question patriarchal clichés of female representation. Because of the orthopraxical component in Islam, this shift seems to have been more difficult in Muslim contexts compared to in other religious contexts. On the whole, ownership of the media in Eurasia Minor is mixed, with Western (European and American) and domestic owners creating a complex network of mutual intersections. There are important exceptions, most notably Turkey, where hundreds of domestic television broadcasters compete but a handful of Turkish media moguls control the market. Television is still the most widely distributed media in the region where public broadcasters transmit nationwide and have been supplemented by seemingly countless local as well as global channels since the 1990s. Therefore, the biggest share of capital investment in advertising is concentrated in the television sector. Quantitatively, this media segment has become the most important carrier of feminine and masculine utopia. In the ‘wild 1990s’, the long decade which in some countries like Bulgaria extended well into the 2000s, sexism and eroticism dominated marketing strategy. A contributing factor was the legal situation which in most countries did not, or failed to, foresee effective sanctions against the visual abuse of the female body. At the beginning of post-socialist transformation, the advertising industry was dominated by Western companies which were gradually substituted by domestic ones. Therefore, it can be justifiably argued that the utopia of femininities and masculinities were translated into images mainly in the studios of the TV advertising industry. Advertising in the Internet is a

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rapidly developing sector that is set to overtake television in terms of capital investment sooner or later. The fifth chapter focuses on one of the two dominant femininity and masculinity cultures in Eurasia Minor, namely veiling-chic culture. In every country, veiling-­ chic is confronted with a secular population or a Christian majority population. All the states in the region are secular, and in some countries, such as Armenia and Serbia, the Muslim minority is very small. Regardless of the exact population distribution, the public space and public media across most of the region are embattled, with porno-chic and veiling-chic cultures at loggerheads. In many countries, the depiction of women in Islamic veiling fashion is not wholeheartedly welcome because such attire is considered ‘backward’. This chapter, however, focuses on Turkey, by far the biggest state in the region and the Muslim country with the most significant impact on the Muslim populations in neighbouring countries. In Turkey, with its remarkable secular past compared to most other countries in the Middle East, Islamic dress and lifestyle as well as the visualisation of veiled Muslim women is contested. Many men and women who consider themselves religious or want to be considered so have chosen to dress and conduct themselves according to the principles of tesettür, in line with religious and cultural prescriptions. This has resulted in the emergence of a strong Islamic fashion industry. The proximity of religious and cultural prescriptions and a liberal economy has led to a long series of conflicts over the visual representation of women. While Islamic scholars emphasise the dogma of the modest appearance and conduct of Muslims, textile entrepreneurs, competing for a share of the market, have been very innovative concerning the style and colour of Islamic garments. The Islamic elite is not afraid of comparisons of its lifestyle with the lifestyle of the secular elite. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, parts of the new Islamic bourgeoise were on the frontline of the confrontation with secularists over the question of veiling at universities. One of the most important conclusions drawn in this chapter is that religious clothing has become an important commercial factor. Since Muslim consumers live around the world, Islamic-chic clothing has become a business of global dimensions and is no longer an economic niche activity. This is underlined by the fact that leading global fashion retailers have absorbed Islamic fashion into their collections. Through digital communication channels, Turkish diasporas in Germany or the UK are no longer isolated from their country of origin, a fact that impacts on the attitudes of young women. Therefore, it is not surprising that a new Muslim femininity utopia has emerged, especially among university students who advocate a different lifestyle from that propagated in foundational Islamic discourse as well as in the Western-style modernity discourse of the secular elites. These young women stand for an Islamic modernity in which they can be visible in public with self-confidence and without losing their ties to religion. They want to be visible in a particular manner, and to be agents in producing that visibility. The sixth and concluding chapter investigates the emergence of porno-chic culture including the moralistic visual representations of femininities and masculinities in the socialist era. This is followed by an analysis of the stereotypical construction of femininities and masculinities in media and advertising. The chapter concludes

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with a presentation of the most important results of the conducted bibliometric research. The exploration of porno-chic across Eurasia Minor has revealed some of the reasons for its emergence in this context. In the wake of the ‘puritan’ socialist era, demand grew for pornography in its various forms. Meanwhile, on the supply side, a large number of dailies and weeklies jostled on small markets – publications with pornographic content were much more likely to secure a permanent position. An additional factor was the lack of effective regulations regarding the visual exploitation of the female body in media and advertising. Also, the entertainment industry expanded into the pornography market, with chalga and turbo-folk music its most successful products. However, this softcore pornographic genre as well as the entire pornographic advertising and media industry, originally a firm base of patriarchal affirmation, started to readjust to the centre of the masculine-feminine-­ LGBTIQ continuum as gay and transgender people assumed popular roles in the entertainment industry. Furthermore, a wide variety of new femininities emerged – this posed a challenge to efforts to categorise them. At this point, it was time to make use of bibliometric methodology and research. This involved conducting a quantitative analysis of the findings of identifiable one hundred entries emerging from 73 surveys on the visual representations of femininities and masculinities, thus providing the most important conclusions for this book. The bibliometric analysis was based on a mass of visual material that a single person or research team of average size could not collect and analyse within a reasonable period. This research methodology allowed, among other things, the extraction of a hegemonic feminine and a hegemonic masculine utopia: the ‘beautiful soap-opera housewife’ and the ‘Marlboro Man’, a ‘lone adventurer, dominant, authoritative, rational, and outdoor-oriented’. The appearance of the Marlboro Man represents the first surprising result of the analysis; the new femininity type, ‘strong and beautiful’, is the other. This type is still in a state of emergence, but due to the overlap with the new Muslim femininity type described in Chap. 5, it opens the way to the most important research results presented below.

Hypotheses Verified The findings and revealed data have verified the three hypotheses presented in the introduction and confirmed them one by one through the entire text. The first, the ‘backlash compensation’ hypothesis, assumes that the backlash phenomenon – or retraditionalisation of gender relations  – which marked early post-socialism and post-Kemalism, is temporary. The backlash occurred as public property and social security were privatised, more women than men retreated from the labour market, religions were revived in the region, socialist concepts of gender equality were rejected in the post-socialist countries, and Islamist movements in Turkey increasingly refused Western modernity. Consequently, gender ideologies became male-­ centred and the social construction of femininities and masculinities started to follow traditional patriarchal clichés. I would not venture the opinion that this is

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already over – on the contrary, most available data indicates that Eurasia Minor is still one of the European regions most deeply affected by patriarchal values and ideologies. But I see indications of a turn. For instance, it has become clear that top-­ down religious revitalisation has not resulted in deep-seated religiosity among the mass of the population. The peak of religious revitalisation seems to have been reached. The legal situation regarding equality has improved significantly over the past one to two decades. Wars are over, though the latent Armenian-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh remains explosive. Bulgaria and Romania are already EU member states and a handful of countries are preparing for full membership. There are numerous pros and cons, but nobody would seriously claim that the Eurasia Minor countries are not better off than three decades ago. The neo-secularism hypothesis postulates that not only retraditionalisation, but also desecularisation, is a transitory phase. Obviously, desecularisation tendencies across the region did not reach a point in any country at which the secular state was endangered, except perhaps in Turkey. Differing in intensity from country to country, the revitalisation of religion has been a complicated process; I have reduced this complexity by introducing the concepts of revitalisation from the bottom up and revitalisation from the top down. Of course, these two directions in which religion has been reintroduced to public life cannot be clearly separated, but tendencies seem to be relatively clear. In the post-socialist countries, efforts to emphasise religion have been largely undertaken from the top down, while in Turkey, Islamic opposition against enforced secularity significantly increased from below in the 1980s and 1990s, paving the way for Islamic government even before the takeover of national government by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the early 2000s. The top-down revitalisation of religion has two features: a broad social consensus that supports an important role in society for religious institutions, and superficial religiosity among a population trained to be irreligious by socialist regimes. Besides, studies across Europe show that on average the younger birth cohorts are less religious than the older ones. The second feature concerns the classification of religions as primarily orthodox or primarily orthopraxical. Whereas Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy emphasise belief, Islam relies more strongly on orthopraxis which encourages Muslims to express their religiosity through certain rituals and conduct in public. For women, this can mean covering the hair and neck, if not the whole body. I believe that these two conceptual pairs can help to explain why the religious population of Turkey tends towards a model of femininity that is visually represented in religiously confirmed fashion, while the formally religious populations of the post-socialist countries tend towards neo-secularism and a femininity model that has been predominantly visually represented by porno-chic culture imported from the West. Of course, conclusions of this kind lean towards the extreme synthesisation of complex developments which this book has tried to elaborate in much more detail in the preceding chapters. In practice, being religious or unreligious can comprise a variety of conflicting attitudes, and the line between the two camps in many cases runs through families and even through religious communities. The third or ‘equilibrium’ hypothesis stresses the idea of pendular movements from one extreme to the other, ultimately arriving at an equilibrium or intermediate

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position. I suggest that my study has presented sufficient examples of such movements. One of the most striking is the pendular swing between socialist puritanism and commercially driven ultra-sexualisation, coming to rest at an intermediate point. At the same time, in Turkey the pendulum has swung from the observation of secular norms to the extreme of Islamic religious puritanism and, it seems, has come to hover over Islamic-chic fashion, which corresponds neither to secular nor to religious norms. The pendulum observation also applies to parts of the media. Thus, for instance, some of Turkey’s religious broadcasters meanwhile have no concerns about filling their airtime with Hollywood films, and secular TV stations are only mildly concerned about showing veiled women. Although the penetration of Western media was not a completely new experience in Eurasia Minor, its post-socialist appearance was massive, also as a result of digitalisation. It was necessary to adapt and synchronise Western-type media with local realities and aspirations. Probably the best example of the regional adaption of a Western genre can be seen in the ‘Dallasification’ of Turkish TV production. Doubtlessly, the most convincing version of indigenisation has been the Turkish soap opera, which has drawn huge audiences across most of Eurasia Minor. In relation to femininities and masculinities the makers of the Turkish soap chose a clever middle course between porno-chic and veiling-chic – appealing to non-religious viewers while not offending religious parts of society. Another media-related aspect is that porno-chic is likely to gradually disappear from public and commercial media but reappear in the blogosphere – a dynamic that is already evident in Western countries but not yet clearly recognisable in the region. Veiling-chic, on the other hand, will not only not vanish from public and commercial media, but veiling as fashion has gone global. This development can be traced in how femininities are advertised by small-scale producers and global retailers, or in the form of self-presentation in the blogosphere. The series of examples of pendular movements could be continued. They show, among other things, the interplay of realia and utopia with realia as a persisting force and utopia as a dynamic force. In the introduction, I proposed that only proof of these three hypotheses will allow the conclusion that the status quo of gender relations may be lifted, and a change for the better can be a plausible option. Hence, we come to the main results of my study.

The Study’s Main Results The aim of this study has been to exploit the epistemic potential of interrelating two seemingly separate levels of gendered interaction, realia and utopia. Having achieved this, the main result of my endeavour is that the second half of the 2000s represents a turning point in the history of post-socialist and post-Kemalist understandings of gender relations and of ideologies defining manhood and womanhood. This shift could be summed up in the form of a headline: ‘From the Submissive Woman and the Repressive Man to the Beauty and the Lone Adventurer.’ The most

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important indication of this change is the visual appearance of new femininities in the utopia of both realms: porno-chic as well as veiling-chic. The two main new femininity types are the ‘strong and beautiful’ type related to porno-chic culture – Western-oriented and independence-seeking  – and the ‘Islamic-chic’ type who expresses individuality within the frame of Islamic modernity and veiling culture. In contrast, the hegemonic femininity type of realia is seen in the (pious) mother and submissive and chaste wife. The ‘strong and beautiful’ and ‘Islamic-chic’ types are a long way from arrival in the mainstream, but they have already become strong enough to be recognised as a business factor by the advertising industry. The new masculinity of utopia is represented by the ‘Marlboro Man’: a lone adventurer, dominant, authoritative, rational, outdoor-oriented, unmarried, and refusing family obligations. At the same time, the predominant characteristics of realia’s hegemonic masculinity are, as listed above, toughness, strength and protectiveness, an inclination to violence, a distinct tendency to oppress wives, a latent concept of man’s superiority over women, homophobia, a tendency to unprotected sex, and a preference for male descendants. Perhaps, utopia’s femininity and masculinity are forerunners of a fundamental change. According to the pendulum hypothesis, most likely utopia and realia will find an equilibrium somewhere in the middle. One possible explanation for this gap between realia and utopia is the change between generations. As youth studies for Eurasia Minor are largely lacking, the potential of younger cohorts remains rather open to speculation. This is illustrated by the fact that the first generation to experience post-socialism as youth was aged 20–30 when socialism and Kemalism started to crumble; the next generation born around that time is now aged 20–30. This generation, born around 1990, has taken over the helm in many important aspects of social life. These young people think differently to their parents about what they want to achieve. The shift concerns other understandings of gender as well as other mores and values. The previous generation that shaped early post-socialism in the ‘wild 1990s’ and the not-so-wild 2000s is losing its hold on society, and the same can be said of porno-chic culture. However, the latter may also be related to pornography’s move to the Internet; it follows that porno-chic and its derivates will likely make an analogous move to the blogosphere. Contrary to the young generation of the immediate post-socialist era, contemporary youth has grown up with digital communication and increasingly consumes and contributes to the blogosphere. The emerging femininity of the Western-oriented ‘strong and beautiful’ type may be representative of this cohort, well versed in social media. Thus, the temporal contextualisation of this study in ‘the digital age’ is not accidental. Eurasia Minor is at the beginning rather than already in the middle of this age. I believe that the utopian being revealed in this study has been co-shaped by the inherent dynamics of digital communication. Utopia has created visualisations of femininities and masculinities that are in obvious conflict with realia. Bearing all this in mind, and also considering that reality is in a permanent state of flux, I allow myself to close with the provocative conclusion that utopia will become realia rather than realia persist indefinitely. Moreover, I claim that the two to three decades after the 1989 watershed constituted a temporary phase of regression, justifiably

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coined as ‘retraditionalisation’; second, that women and not men have been the main agents of change by not accepting patriarchy after patriarchy any longer; and, third, I am positive that my research has provided sufficient evidence to permit the following statement: ‘The idea of mutual respect and of equality for all genders has matured so far that it will increasingly gain ground in Eurasia Minor despite pronounced resistance  – in some countries earlier, in others later, and with varying intensity across the region.’

Index

A Abortion legalisation, 86 rate, 60, 85, 86, 88 Advertising, 114 agencies (companies), 10, 109, 114 digital, 17, 115 expenditures, 113–115 industry, 31, 99, 114, 127, 175, 186, 188 Internet (online), 113–116, 192 market, 114 newspapers, 113–115 press, 117 socialism, 216 strategies, 116 television, 113–115, 189, 190 women’s magazines, 17, 145, 165, 191 Albania, 5, 9, 15, 23, 25, 28, 32, 34, 36, 38, 43, 44, 47, 63, 68, 81, 85–88, 104, 106, 114–117, 125, 137, 140, 142, 172 Ankara, 76, 113, 139, 155 Armenia, 23, 24, 29, 31–33, 35, 37, 40, 43, 46, 59, 63, 64, 69, 75, 78, 86, 87, 99, 102, 104, 106, 183, 203, 209 Azerbaijan, 5, 15, 23, 24, 26–28, 35, 37, 38, 40, 43, 46, 49, 59, 62, 63, 67–69, 74, 75, 78, 81, 87, 88, 99, 101, 104, 106, 107, 123, 137, 140, 142 B Baku, 28, 38, 50, 75, 76, 78, 107, 142 Balkan patriarchy, 6, 61, 70, 201 Western Balkan countries, 35, 64

Beard, 122, 139, 160 Beauty, 10, 18, 60, 69, 109, 110, 138, 141, 146, 154, 157, 172–175, 177, 182–184, 187, 188, 191–205, 215, 216 Belgrade, 77, 83, 124, 193, 194, 202 Bibliometric analysis content-related counting, 206 normalisation of citation data, 206 Blogging blogosphere, 107, 126, 197, 198, 210, 231, 232 facebook, 107, 115, 198, 200 instagram, 107, 115 self-representation, 14, 196 social network sites (SNS), 2, 3, 14, 197 youtube, 107, 115, 118 Body attractive, 128 capital, 198 female, 3, 17, 38, 109–111, 128, 133, 134, 136, 137, 141, 142, 144, 145, 147, 154, 158, 161, 165, 175, 178, 179, 187–189, 194, 196 male, 134, 155, 192 naked, 178, 192 nude, 158, 174, 179, 188, 192, 193 uncovered, 195 Bosnia and Herzegovina, 8, 9, 15, 23, 24, 26–28, 30–34, 41–43, 45, 47, 63, 66, 67, 71, 73, 81, 83, 86, 88, 102, 103, 106, 109, 116, 123, 125, 136, 137, 141, 143, 157, 158, 178, 180, 185, 202, 206, 209 Bulgaria, 5, 24, 60, 99, 109, 140, 143, 174

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 K. Kaser, Femininities and Masculinities in the Digital Age, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78412-6

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236 C Capitalism, 8, 10, 18, 24, 31, 117, 155, 158, 188, 199 Catholic Church, 86, 185 Cemaat, 149, 151 Central Europe, 100, 127 Chalga music, 18, 105 performance, 45, 62, 105, 124, 149, 158, 165, 200, 201, 206, 224 star, 188, 203 Cinema audience, 111, 151, 152, 179–181 industry, 111, 113, 126, 151, 152 Islamic, 153 macho cinema (see Macho) new, 112, 151, 153, 182 Turkish, 112, 151–153, 182, 183 white, 153 Clothing (dressing) Islamic clothing, 119, 146, 158, 160, 165 (see also Tesettür) Islamic fashion, 8, 118, 120, 121, 127, 144 Cohabitation, 40, 43, 79–82, 84, 88 Coitus interruptus, 85 Condoms, 84, 85 Consumption, 2, 4, 103, 110, 111, 117, 119, 134, 146, 147, 158–161, 173, 175, 187, 203 Contraception contraceptive behaviour, 79 Cosmetics cosmetic industry, 127 Cyprus, 23, 24, 27, 31, 63, 69, 81, 191 D Demography behaviour, 79, 80 birth rates, 79 first demographic transition (FDT), 79, 80 second demographic transition (SDT), 79–82 Digital visuality, vi, 1, 2, 5, 98 Discrimination, 17, 40, 41, 43, 44, 49, 61, 64, 75, 76, 79, 143, 154 Divorce, 17, 40, 62, 63, 74, 79–82, 84, 88, 150 Domestic life, 5 E E-commerce, 17, 99, 107, 115, 116, 126 Education, 2, 33, 39, 40, 48, 58, 59, 62, 64, 65, 67–68, 70, 72, 124, 134, 138, 139,

Index 141–143, 148, 158, 159, 162, 171, 175, 177, 183–185, 195, 196, 198 Employment, 25, 32–34, 37, 41, 66, 117, 141, 150 Entertainment industry, 187, 205 Eroticism erotic magazines, 195, 200 Eurasia Minor, v, vi, 5–8, 15, 16, 23–51, 58, 59, 62–64, 68, 70, 72, 73, 81, 88, 98–100, 103, 104, 106–108, 112, 116, 123, 125–128, 166, 171, 184, 189, 193, 195, 197, 204, 206, 207, 214, 215 European Values Study, 123, 124 F Facebook, see Blogging Family planning, 79, 80, 85–87 Fashion advertising, 109, 116–119, 121, 126, 127, 145, 147, 171, 172, 175, 207, 210, 216 blogs, 118, 120 brands, 99, 146 business, 11 catalogues, 143, 146, 147, 210 global, 99, 118, 163, 165 industry, 15, 18, 117, 118, 120, 121, 126, 127, 134, 136, 158, 160 men’s, 119, 139 Muslim, 11, 120, 147 new Muslim, 18, 163–165 shows, 119, 144, 146, 157, 159, 210 women’s, 5 Femininities camgirl, 205 caregiving, 71, 184 chaste, married, and obedient housewife and mother submissive to the husband, 72 dignity, 141, 144 displayed body, 214 hegemonic, 15, 64, 68–70, 109, 110, 177, 205 honour, 58, 69–71, 87 housekeeping, 70 housewife and beautiful, 177, 214, 215 hyper-femininities, 193, 198, 216 hyper-sexualised femininities, 191 islamic progressive, 214 Muslim femininities, 11, 144, 166 new, 3, 10, 12, 14, 18, 136, 146, 172, 174, 192–205, 214

Index new Muslim femininities, v, 18, 162–166, 214 oversexed femininities, 178 pious women, 185 sexual (libidinal) entrepreneurs, 205 sexualised, 8, 190, 192 sponzoruša (gold digger; sponsored girl), 202 strong and beautiful, 214 superwoman, 199, 205, 214 Femininities and masculinities, 103, 192 advertising of, 186–192 alternative, 6, 51, 57, 76, 81, 85 the beauty and the lone adventurer, 215, 231 commodifying of, 121, 134, 186, 201, 205 construction of, 1, 3, 7, 11–13, 15, 17, 64, 88, 89, 98, 117, 121, 122, 153, 172 imagined, 5 Islamic, 59, 66, 67, 69, 76, 88, 137 mutra (nouveau riche; ugly face), 203 mutressa (mistress of a mutra), 203 neoliberal, 4, 51 performing, 200, 201 promiscuity, 60 rearranging, 50, 89, 166 reformulating, 17, 98 retraditionalisation of, 15 staging, 5 stereotyping, 7, 189, 191, 192 utopian, 89, 98, 117, 205 Feminism feminist films (see Film) first-wave, 47 Islamic, 48, 49 postfeminism, 3, 186 ‘room-service feminism, 48 second-wave, 47 third-wave, 3, 50 western, 41, 48 Feredža (Turk. ferece), 136 Fertility rates, 24, 62, 79, 86 Fez, 140, 144 Film feminist, 181 gay, 181 industry, 17, 99, 112, 179, 186 lesbian, 152, 181, 216 movie, 112, 179 pornographic, 107, 193 production, 106, 111, 112, 127, 151, 152, 179–181 women directors, 113, 179, 180, 183

237 women’s, 151, 183 Free market economy, 59, 112 G Gender complementarity theory, 66–67, 125 employment gap, 32, 33, 35 equality, 5, 9, 16, 31, 40–42, 48, 49, 59, 61, 63–67, 70, 102, 173, 174, 184, 216 inequality, 39, 62, 87, 109, 154, 156, 204 relations, v, vi, 1, 5, 6, 9, 15, 17, 25, 36, 39, 40, 51, 57–59, 61, 64, 68, 71, 74, 88, 89, 125, 135, 138, 144, 154, 166, 176, 181, 186, 204 roles, vi, 6–8, 11, 44, 60, 62, 64, 65, 68, 71, 126, 150, 151, 157, 178, 181, 182, 184, 188–190, 207, 213–215 stereotypes, 7, 41, 46, 64, 68, 186, 191 studies, v, 7, 9, 68 wage gap, 10, 25, 31, 32, 35 Generation second, 120 young, 14, 65, 106, 110, 111, 160 Georgia, 23, 24, 27, 29, 31, 32, 40, 46, 60, 62, 63, 65, 68, 73, 82, 86, 87, 99, 106, 107, 140, 198, 203 Glamour, 89, 146, 153, 177, 201 Globalisation, 3, 98, 149, 166 Greece, 8, 23–25, 27, 29, 34, 36, 44, 58, 85, 100, 112, 183 H Headscarf, 14, 118, 122, 138–144, 147, 149, 155, 161–164 Hijab, 112, 121, 139, 142, 157 Hollywood, 107, 112, 127, 149, 152, 153, 179, 180 Homophobia, 71, 74, 78, 88 Hooligans, 76–78 Hymenoplasty, 83 Hypotheses ‘backlash compensation’ hypothesis, 15 equilibrium hypothesis, 16 neo-secularism hypothesis, 16 I Internet penetration, 101, 106, 107 users, 106, 107, 116, 198 web, 2 WWW, 2, 101

238 Islam films, 112, 136, 145, 152–154, 165 lifestyle, 18, 69, 104, 119, 147, 154, 155, 158–162 media, 18, 137, 150 and modernity, 135, 136 newspapers, 110, 111, 136, 143, 145, 150, 153, 155, 156, 165 and orthopraxy (correct conduct), 16, 122, 123, 158 political, 49, 118, 121, 124, 145, 147, 161 television, 104, 108, 110, 111, 145, 149, 150, 153 women’s magazines, 143, 145, 155, 157, 165 Islamic clothing, 119, 146, 158, 160, 165 Istanbul, 4, 23, 29, 41, 58, 76, 77, 113, 118, 119, 134, 162 IUD, 80, 85 K Kosovo, 9, 15, 23, 24, 27, 28, 31, 33, 42, 47, 62, 63, 67, 81, 83, 86–88, 101, 137, 141, 142, 202 L Labour market, 33, 35, 37, 66, 141, 196 migration, 25, 31, 35–37 Legal equality, 40, 75 LGBTIQ bisexuality, 75 gay identities, 75 gays, 43, 75, 76 intersexuality, 79, 89 lesbians, 43, 75, 76 pride parades, 77 queers, 75 same-sex marriage, 43, 79 same-sex relations, 43, 44, 75 transgender, 75 transsexuality, 75 Literacy rate, 67 M Macho macho cinema, 152, 180, 182, 186 Magazines Cosmopolitan, 109, 110, 126, 154, 191, 192

Index women’s magazines, 17, 97, 109–111, 143, 145, 154, 155, 157, 165, 173, 175–179, 183, 186, 191, 216 Manhood, 11, 42, 51, 58, 62, 69–71, 74, 194 Marriage age at marriage, 63, 81, 82, 88 arrangements, 79–89 monogamy, 60 nuptiality, 63, 80 Masculinities breadwinner, 51, 72, 121 hegemonic masculinity, 6, 13, 68, 70, 72, 74, 88, 177, 203–205 hybrid, 204 local, 13, 70, 72, 76, 88, 98, 187, 201–204 Marlboro Man, 176, 203–205, 214 misogyny, 75, 204 new masculinities, 193, 203–205 nonhegemonic masculinities, 13, 72, 177 pious and bearded, 121 regional, 5, 15, 59, 70, 72, 88, 98, 113, 117, 134, 176, 203–205, 214 superiority over women, strong and protective, inclination to homophobia and unprotected sex, 72 violent, 18, 70–74, 177, 180 Media concerns, 108 films (see Film) internet (see Internet) landscapes, 18, 99–103, 113, 176–186, 216 mass media, 8, 11, 101 newspapers (see Newspapers) pious media, 158 tabloid press (see Tabloid press) television (see Television (TV)) Methodological components, 5 Moldova, 5, 24, 29, 31, 36, 41, 43, 62, 63, 65, 73, 81, 115 Montenegro, 23, 24, 26, 27, 35, 38, 43, 62, 71, 81, 83, 87, 102, 103, 106, 125, 141 N Neoliberalism, 12, 196 Neo-secularism, 16 New socialist man, 97, 172 Newspapers, 6, 8, 9, 11, 97–103, 106, 108–111, 148, 153–158, 178, 194, 195, 207, 216 Northern Europe, Nordic countries, 62 North Macedonia, 23, 24, 26, 27, 29, 32, 34, 35, 45, 47, 62, 63, 67, 73, 76, 78, 81, 83, 86–87, 103, 108, 116, 117, 125, 141, 142

Index O Orthodox Church orthodoxy (correct belief), 16, 88, 121–124, 126, 135 Overcoats, 118, 121, 124, 136, 141, 143, 158, 163 P Patriarchy patriarchal backlash, 40, 61 patriarchy index, 63 Photography, 107, 154, 178 Pictorial turn, 2 (the) Pill, 79, 80, 85, 86 Pornography porno-chic, v, 13–15, 18, 59, 69, 104, 105, 109, 110, 113, 121, 126–128, 133, 134, 147, 165, 166, 171–216 pornographisation, 193 porno-market, 195 pornosphere, 108, 193 Post-Kemalism, 5, 9, 10, 159 Post-socialism, 5, 9, 10, 61, 100, 128, 159, 176, 192, 216 Poverty, 31, 32, 36, 51, 86, 181, 204 Private spheres, 44, 73, 135, 138, 142, 148, 163 Prostitution prostitutes, 37, 38, 137, 178, 194, 205 trafficking, 25, 31, 37, 38, 178 Public sphere, 13, 16, 25, 29, 44, 46, 51, 67, 74, 89, 122, 124, 136, 142–145, 148, 162, 163, 184 R Realia, vi, 5, 8–10, 12, 16–18, 51, 59, 88, 89, 97, 98, 121, 126–128, 158, 166, 176, 177, 179, 205, 215, 216 Religiosity religious entrepreneurs, 121–128 religious life, 16, 135 religious revival, 125, 134 Repatriarchisation and retraditionalisation, 4, 16, 40, 51, 59, 61, 65, 66, 88, 166, 179, 181, 186, 197, 215 Right-wing groups skinhead, 76 Romania, 8, 23, 25, 27, 29, 34, 35, 37, 38, 40, 41, 43, 45, 48, 60, 62, 63, 68, 77, 80–82, 84, 86, 101–104, 106, 109, 114–117, 190, 199, 200, 209

239 S Sarajevo, 76, 78, 79, 83, 136, 137 Scandinavia, 100 Secularism desecularisation, 16, 122–124 secular elite, 104, 138, 146, 159, 161 secularisation, 28, 29, 123, 125 Serbia, 8, 9, 23, 24, 26, 27, 29, 32–35, 43, 47, 63, 65, 71, 76, 81, 102, 103, 105, 106, 109, 112, 115, 116, 123–125, 178, 201, 203, 204, 206, 209 Sexuality casual sex, 62, 63 desexualisation, 194 hetero-sexism, 39, 42, 44, 59, 71, 76, 78, 88, 191, 204, 214, 216 hyper-sexualisation, 14, 186, 188, 201 over-sexualisation, 3, 144, 147, 186 premarital sex, 17, 82, 83, 126 prenatal sex selection, 87, 88 sexual behaviour, 60, 69, 70, 83, 84, 125, 174, 194, 201 sexual debut, 83, 84, 88 sexual life, 80, 82–85, 88 sexual morality, 15, 60, 62, 63, 134, 193 sexual provocation, 201 sexual relations, 57, 60, 69, 86, 121 sex work, 37 Soap operas, see Television (TV) Socialisation, 11, 67 Socialism, 4, 7, 24, 39, 45, 48, 59, 61, 79, 98, 102, 111, 117, 122, 134, 135, 172–176, 184, 186, 193, 194, 198, 199, 201, 203, 216 Socialist visuality, 7 Social Network Sites (SNS), see Blogging South Caucasus, v, 4, 6, 8, 9, 23–51, 63, 64, 72, 73, 75, 79, 80, 86–88, 99, 117, 121, 126, 135, 154, 172, 176, 198, 203, 209 Soviet Union, 24, 32, 43, 60, 87, 135, 140, 166, 172, 175 T Tabloid press, 109, 128, 176–179, 186, 216 Tbilisi, 27, 78, 198 Television (TV) broadcasting, 97, 99–101, 143, 147, 150 channels (commercial, private, pious, public, religious, secular), 100, 103, 105, 147, 149, 150, 176, 195, 197 series, 41, 104, 147–149 soap operas, 89, 104, 147, 148 stations, 99, 103, 112, 149, 150, 165, 194, 216

240 Tesettür, 118–121, 145–147, 155, 159, 161, 164, 166 brands, 120 industry, 155 manufacturers, 121 women, 121, 161 See also Islamic clothing Textbooks, 6, 8, 11, 17, 68, 88, 136, 145, 154–158, 176, 179, 183–184, 206, 207 Textual discourses, v, 9, 17, 88 Theoretical orientations, 9, 10, 13, 15 Tirana, 78 Tourism, 37–39, 200 Turbo-folk music, 18, 105, 201, 205, 216 performance, 201 star, 201, 205 Turkey, 5, 24, 58, 99, 134, 182 U Unemployment, 25, 31–35, 37, 111 United Kingdom (UK), 2, 3, 43, 107, 108, 120, 155, 171, 195, 197, 198 United States (US, USA), 3, 14, 48, 58, 64, 76, 82, 100, 101, 103, 104, 108, 109, 112, 116, 120, 144, 147, 155, 199 Utopia, vi, 2, 3, 5, 8–10, 12, 15–18, 89, 98, 101, 121, 126, 127, 145, 158, 166, 176, 179, 186, 215 V Veiling ban, 164 face-veiling, 136, 141 head-veiling, 137 Veiling-chic, v, 15, 17, 69, 104, 110, 113, 121, 126–128, 133, 134, 145, 147, 165, 166, 171, 187 Video, 101, 105, 153, 193–195, 197, 200, 207, 210

Index Violence domestic violence, 4, 48, 70–74 Virginity, 69, 82, 83, 88 Visuality visual business, 126 visual construction, 2, 7, 10, 13 visual cultures, 2, 4, 5, 11, 13, 18, 111, 165 visual discourses, v, 9, 10, 17, 89, 98 visual presentation, 1, 5, 120, 165, 172, 205 visual representation, v, 3, 5, 8, 9, 11–13, 18, 25, 59, 104, 109, 113, 120, 122, 123, 125, 133–135, 144, 149, 156–158, 165, 172, 176, 178, 184, 192, 195, 206, 207, 209, 215, 216 visual turn, 1 W Wage gap, 10, 34, 35 Wages, 10, 31–35, 60, 119 Web, see Internet Western Europe, 37, 76, 79, 80, 82, 120, 197 Wild 1990s, 9, 18, 177–179, 186, 193, 215 Womanhood, 11, 51, 58, 69, 88, 174, 185, 199 Women directors, see Film Women in political life, 44 Women’s films, see Film Women’s magazines, 17, 97, 109–111, 143, 145, 154, 155, 157, 165, 173, 175–179, 183, 186, 191, 216 Women’s organisations, 47–50, 110, 113 WWW, see Internet Y Yerevan, 64, 78, 79 YouTube, see Blogging Yugoslavia, 24, 43, 45, 48, 71, 105, 111, 112, 125, 141, 166, 172, 176, 180–182, 193, 194